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Described as ‘terrific and very important’ by Simon Schama and ‘an amazing education’ by David Baddiel, Empireland: How Imperialism Has Shaped Modern Britain by Sathnam Sanghera is already one of 2021’s most-talked-about books.

Now in this special in-hall and online Jewish Book Week event the Times columnist and The Boy With The Topknot author joins Guardian journalist and The Windrush Betrayal author Amelia Gentleman to explore how so much of British life today – from Brexit and the NHS to our COVID response and discussions of race – are rooted in our imperial past, despite the subject of empire having so often been hidden from view.

Sathnam Sanghera was born to Punjabi immigrant parents in Wolverhampton in 1976. He entered the education system unable to speak English but, after attending Wolverhampton Grammar School, graduated from Christ’s College, Cambridge with a first class degree in English Language and Literature in 1998. He has been shortlisted for the Costa Book Awards twice, for his memoir The Boy With The Topknot and his novel Marriage Material, the former being adapted by BBC Drama in 2017 and named Mind Book of the Year in 2009. He has won numerous prizes for his journalism at The Financial Times and The Times, including Young Journalist of the Year in 2002 and Media Commentator of the Year in 2015. He lives in London.

Amelia Gentleman is a reporter for the Guardian. She was named Journalist of the Year at the 2019 British Journalism Awards and won the 2018 Paul Foot journalism award for her reportage on the Windrush scandal. She has also won the Orwell Prize and Feature Writer of the Year in the British Press Awards. Previously, she was Delhi correspondent for the International Herald Tribune, and Paris and Moscow correspondent for the Guardian. Her book The Windrush Betrayal was longlisted for the Baillie Gifford prize for non-fiction.