
Author, Journalist, Festival Organiser
Christopher is an author, journalist and founder of The Lake DIstrict Book Festival. In a career that has spanned twenty-five years and five continents, he has reported on revolutions and wars and written and broadcast on subjects as diverse as loneliness and religious radicalisation, cockfighting in Afghanistan and euthanasia in the Netherlands.
The Golden Throne
I love history but recently my patience for history books has worn thin — the besetting sin is an excess of dates jostling with an army of names and a bloat of research. Reading The Golden Throne … has been a joy, though. It focuses on Suleyman the Magnificent, the Ottoman emperor, in his years of pomp in the 16th century. Written in the present tense, with novelistic flair, we get a ringside seat of diplomatic maneuvering, sea battles against the Holy League and peek inside his harem. ... It’s a sequel to The Lion House, which covered Suleyman’s earlier years in power. I’m in awe of de Bellaigue’s imagination and skill in distilling a huge amount of research into a witty, fleet-footed narrative.
— Robbie Millen, Literary Editor of The Times and The Sunday Times
Books
The Golden Throne
The Lion house
Flying Green
The Islamic Enlightenment
Patriot of Persia
Rebel Land
What’s New
Staying at the Lindens
In 2020 Christopher and his wife Bita Ghezelayagh, a textile artist whose pieces are in some of the world's major museums, bought the Lindens, a seventeenth century farmhouse in the Lowther Valley on the eastern fringes of Cumbria's Lake District National Park. Since then, they have turned it into a comfortable and elegant home that reflects the personalities and tastes of its owners.
The Lake District Book Festival
One of the most beautiful places in England, the Lake District boasts fewer world cultural class events than one might expect. In 2024 Christopher set up the Lake District Book Festival with Charlotte Fairbairn. Spanning three days and featuring superb writers and speakers, as well as the best local food and drink, the LDBF will debut between 12-14 June 2026 in the stunning setting of Cartmel Racecourse in southern Cumbria, within easy reach of the rest of the Lake District, Greater Manchester and further afield.