Empireland: How Imperialism has Shaped Modern Britain
The British Empire ran for centuries and is fundamental to understanding not only modern Britain, but areas of the world that it once encompassed. HKILF presents two writers whose work across multiple genres probes the discourse about colonialism and race and the interconnections of past and present. In his new book Empireland, journalist Sathnam Sanghera examines how much of modern Britain is rooted in its imperial past, in spite of a tendency to avoid or simplify the subject in public discourse. He is joined in conversation by Caryl Phillips, prolific author, researcher and lecturer on the experience of the African diaspora and the continuing impact of the slave trade, who explores identity, belonging and exclusion in books from essay collection Colour Me English to fiction including A View of the Empire at Sunset. Moderated by Ravi Mattu, Deputy Asia News Editor of the Financial Times.
Authors will appear virtually.
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Born to Punjabi immigrant parents, Sathnam Sanghera is a Cambridge English Language and Literature graduate. He is a two-time Costa Book Awards shortlist, and has won prizes for his journalism at the Financial Times and The Times. His third book, Empireland: How Imperialism Shaped Modern Britain became an instant Sunday Times bestseller.
Caryl Phillips was born in St.Kitts but has lived for some years in the USA, where he is a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and Professor English Literature at Yale University. Known primarily as a novelist – Crossing the River was on the Booker Prize shortlist and won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and A Distant Shore won the Commonwealth Writers Prize – he has also published non-fiction, drama, and written for both television and the screen. His latest novel is A View of the Empire at Sunset (2018).
Ravi Mattu is the deputy Asia news editor of the Financial Times, helping to oversee the paper’s coverage of the Asia-Pacific region.