Yasmin Khan facts for kids

Yasmin Cordery Khan is a British historian, novelist and broadcaster whose work focuses on the British Empire, Colonial India and the decolonisation of South Asia. She is a Fellow of Kellogg College, Oxford and Professor of Modern History based in the Oxford University Department for Continuing Education.

Education and career

Khan completed her BA in History at St Peter's College, Oxford. Khan completed her DPhil at St Antony's College, Oxford in 2005 in Imperial and Commonwealth History.

Khan held positions at the University of Edinburgh and Royal Holloway, University of London before joining Kellogg College in 2012. Khan's work focuses on decolonisation, British migration histories, British Indian history, the Second World War and the End of Empire. In October 2024 she was awarded the Title of Distinction of Professor Modern History by the University of Oxford.

Khan is an editor of History Workshop Journal and a trustee of the Charles Wallace India Trust. She served as Kellogg College's senior tutor between 2019 and 2022.

Khan's publications include The Great Partition: The Making of India and Pakistan (2007), which won the Gladstone Book Prize from the Royal Historical Society and was long-listed for the Orwell Prize, and The Raj at War: A People's History of India's Second World War (2015). She has written for the Guardian newspaper, and appeared on Channel 4 News and BBC Radio.

Her first work of fiction, Edgware Road, was published in 2022. A second novel, Overland, was published in 2024.

Public appearances and media

In Our Time (BBC Radio 4 2012)

Khan appeared on a programme discussing the life and work of Annie Besant.

A Passage to Britain (BBC 2 2018)

Khan presented a three-part series for BBC 2 in 2018 based on ships' passenger lists between Britain and India to trace the stories of passengers during the three decades before Indian independence in 1947.

The first episode, based on the passenger list of the Viceroy of India, included the story of Mulk Raj Anand.

Britain’s Biggest Dig (BBC 2 2020)

In 2020, Khan presented a three-part series with Professor Alice Roberts for BBC 2 on two major archeological digs carried out in London and Birmingham in preparation for building terminals for the HS2 high-speed railway.

Selected publications