Alexander Hurst spent most of his childhood in a quirky, pre-gentrification, inner-city neighborhood in Cleveland, Ohio before crossing the Atlantic. After a year working in Moundou, Chad (where he learned to properly peel a mango), he ended up in Paris, writing longform stories and essays for various publications, like Hazlitt, Eater, The New Republic, The Guardian, and others.

His memoir, Generation Desperation, is a reckoning. At its center, a story about how Alexander made—and lost—$1.2 million trading “meme stocks” during the chaotic Covid lockdowns of 2020. But it’s about much more than that: it’s about the corrosive emotional and spiritual effects of growing up in an era where every decision—about money, love, work, identity—is shaped by systemic precarity. About what ‘desperation capitalism’ has done to a generation that has lurched from crisis to crisis, torn between twin desires for meaning and community and the frantic need to find a way out. About finding something real and lasting in a world meant to keep you hustling forever.

Generation Desperation is available in January, 2026 from Hodder & Stoughton, and in German translation from Goldmann Verlag.

He is represented by Emma Bal at the London-based Madeleine Milburn Literary Agency.