Norm Longley was born in Portsmouth and grew up in Somerset, before going on to study for a degree in Business and Sport, then a Masters in the Sociology of Sport, neither of which he found any use for. He first visited the Balkans in the mid 1990s, travelling extensively around the region, though his time was mostly spent in those countries of the former Yugoslavia. Following two years’ teaching English in Novi Sad, Serbia, he returned to England in 1999, whereupon he embarked upon his first Rough Guide project, contributing to The Rough Guide to Romania, which he is now co-author of. He is also the author of  The Rough Guide to Hungary and The Rough Guide to Slovenia, the latter now in its second edition. He is currently writing the first edition of The Rough Guide to Montenegro. His interests include a number of sports, hiking, and Eastern European film and music, with a particularly fondness for the sounds of Serbian and Romanian gypsy brass bands.