My Writing Living with Sathnam Sanghera

On early childhood

“There were no books in our house, no newspapers. My dad is illiterate, he can’t read or write, so it was a very non-literary household I grew up in. Although, I fell in love with reading at school and at the library. My dad, even though he couldn’t read or write, took all four children to the library every two weeks. It’s quite moving when I think about it.”

On publishing his memoir The Boy with the Top Knot

“The longest thing I’d written up to that point was 2,000 words. I remember being asked to write a 1,000-word column when I was in my mid-20s. It took me two weeks to write it. And it was supposed to be a weekly column, so that was a bit problematic. I really struggled with length. But I went on a writing course with the Arvon Foundation. I also read a lot of memoirs, and with the help of my late agent, I managed to get it done.”

Looking back, I’m amazed I wrote it because I couldn’t be that personal now. Everything about academia and journalism is about the subject. You rarely use the word “I”. It took quite a lot of time for me to untrain myself. It was an act of naivety to be that frank. I kind of cringe when I think back on it, but it all worked out and I’m glad I did it. But I couldn’t do it again.

I look back and I kind of envy myself for my bravery. I had no idea what I was doing. But now I know too much and I’m actually very, very careful about what I say about myself. You learn how the information you divulge can be used against you. You’ll never find anyone more private than someone who’s written a memoir.

The reaction from my family and friends was almost entirely positive. I published it with their permission. I ran it past them, I took out things. I didn’t want to antagonise anyone. I wanted it to be a loving thing. It actually sorted out a lot of stuff in my family, it was therapeutic for everyone.”

On Writing About Empire and British History

“I was in my early 40s, researching a novel about a guy who came over from British India in the 18th century. I realised I knew nothing about the East India Company or British India or Empire, and yet it explained so much about me. I started trying to find books, but all the books on the British Empire were very long, very politicised and very inaccessible. I guess my research became the book. I wanted to educate myself, and hopefully, I educated people along with me.

From my time as a journalist with the FT, I learned how to make difficult subjects accessible. At the FT, I often wrote about finance and business, technically dry subjects. But there are ways to make them accessible and entertaining. My memoir was about schizophrenia, one of the most difficult subjects in the world. If there’s one thing I’ve learned how to do, it’s to talk about difficult things in an accessible way. My writing on Empire was an extension of that.

On the popularity of these works

“Black Lives Matter happened, and that made people interested in institutional racism. There was also a backlash to BLM, and that made people interested in different ways. The British Empire happened and went on for 300 or 400 years, but we’ve never really dealt with it. I think as a country we’re finally beginning to really explore it, and new narratives are beginning to emerge. Almost everyone in Britain has some connection to that history, either through the colonised or the colonisers. Also our culture… tea, gin and tonic, tax avoidance. If you want to understand the world, you’ve got to understand the British Empire.”

On writing for a younger audience with Stolen History

“Younger people are much easier to talk to about this than older people. Older people come with a lot more baggage, prejudices and talking points they’ve picked up from social media. Young people are not so much like that. The problems come when I go to a school and then their parents hear about it and complain to the teacher, saying, ‘Why are you telling my kid to hate Britain?’ The teachers are on the frontlines of the culture wars, dealing with that nonsense, whereas I’m long gone. But really, the kids’ stuff has been almost entirely positive. I think a lot of that is because kids’ books don’t get reviewed in the same vicious way that adult books do. It’s the adult books that attracted the trolling, the death threats, all that crap.”

On the writing process

“I’m not a trained historian. Technically I am now, as a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, but I began this without training. I wanted to keep that uncertainty. That’s the problem I have with a lot of history books: they assume a lot of knowledge and come with a “take”. I wanted to embrace uncertainty, I think you get closer to the truth that way.

I’m towards the end of a book at the moment, and it’s horrible. Every book has a different ritual. Once you’re done, you can’t go near that ritual ever again, it’s like you’ve committed a murder. I wrote my novel in the British Library, and I can’t go there now without feeling physically sick. I’m writing a lot of the current book in a particular café in my local neighbourhood. I’m probably going to have to move house after this.

You’ve kind of caught me at the worst time for this. At the beginning of a project, it can be infinitely beautiful because you haven’t written a word. But by the end, all you’re left with are your limitations and you can’t even see the good stuff you’ve done.

The way I work is a bit of a nightmare, I draft things like 76 times. Writing is like being in a brainstorming session where every other person is you – and they all hate you. And it’s like that for three years. Why would anyone do that for a living? Sometimes it works out. If it didn’t, we could all do something more sane.”

On writing about George Michael in upcoming book

“I wasn’t going to write about George Michael, I was going to write about a very difficult geopolitical issue that I don’t even want to name because it attracts trolling. A friend of mine suggested to me that I just don’t write it. She said “why don’t you write about something fun instead, something you know about and that you enjoy? Why don’t you write a book about George Michael?” It was literally that simple. It turns out that next year is 10 years since he died, and publishers were actually very interested. But I just liked the idea of a change of subject, I’ve written lots of very different books. Jumping around genres isn’t really how you make it, but it does keep you interested and sane.

Advice for aspiring writers

“In some ways, it’s tougher nowadays, in other ways, easier. When I wanted to write, there were no outlets. Now there’s Substack, Twitter, Facebook, you can practice your writing and gain an audience from anywhere. But with AI and the death of local newspapers, it’s really tough actually making a living.

In a way, I don’t think people need advice on writing. It’s like football, if you want to do it, you just do it. It’s almost like an out of body experience, you can’t help yourself. But if I had one piece of advice, it’s read books. I’m shocked by how many young people say they want to be a writer but when I ask who their favourite novelist or journalist is, they don’t have answers. You wouldn’t open a shop without going to Tesco’s first.”

Estimated breakdown of income sources:

On AI and authors

I’m so disappointed in this government, I cannot believe they’re just selling us down the river. I’ve noticed that a lot of people I know are losing work lately. A friend of mine makes some money each year writing wedding speeches for people. He said he’s had no requests at all this year, because everyone is just using AI to write these bland, soulless wedding speeches.

My work has been used to train Meta’s AI. I’ve also had a memoir of my life story produced by an AI publisher, which was just bizarre. I think a lot of people in the public eye are experiencing this, you can buy a book that tells my life story written by AI. Obviously I had to buy it. One of the things it hallucinates is my death. There’s about five pages on what happened when I died. The response to my death was very heartwarming though, apparently all of Wolverhampton was upset.

It also just gets very basic queries wrong. One of the first things you now see when you Google me is that I’m married to someone I did an event with two years ago. She was a partner in a law firm, but it took it to mean my partner. Even though I’ve written long pieces for the Times about my actual wife.”

What he’s reading

“I really like The Wide Wide Sea by Hampton Sides, about Captain Cook’s second journey. I’m actually reading lots of books about quantum physics, like The Unknown Universe by Stuart Clark, I can’t even explain why. I think it’s because it’s a difficult subject, and I enjoy the challenge. I think it’s a bit of an escape. The world’s in a really bad place, so I find it reassuring to think about the beginning and end of the universe. We’re all going to be specks of dust. Who cares about Donald Trump or my new book?”

You can find out more about Sathnam and his works here.