Andrew Hussey

Who is Andrew Hussey?

Andrew Hussey OBE is an English cultural historian and biographer.

Born in Liverpool, Hussey was educated at the University of Manchester and the Jean Moulin University Lyon 3. He received his PhD for a thesis on Georges Bataille, eventually published as his first book. His biography of Guy Debord was named by Julian Barnes as International Book of the Year in the Times Literary Supplement in 2001.

Hussey lectured in French at the University of Huddersfield in the 1990s. He was a senior lecturer in French at the University of Wales Aberystwyth and since 2006 he has been the dean of the University of London Institute in Paris. He began his career as a journalist writing for Julie Burchill's Modern Review in the early 1990s. He now regularly contributes to The Observer, New Statesman, Granta and Literary Review.

In 2007, Hussey provided the foreword to How to Enjoy Paris in 1842, written by Francis Hervé. He is best known for his book Paris: The Secret History, described by Peter Ackroyd in The Times as "endlessly informative, with a story on every page".