“What was this yearning, tearing at her insides like hunger and thirst? It couldn't be love. Love was warm and soft, like a bed of leaves. But this was dark, like the shade under a poisonous shrub, and it was hungry. So hungry. It must have some other name, just as there couldn't be the same word for life and death, or for moon and sun”

German author of children's fiction

Cornelia Funke is a German author of children’s fiction, known for fantasy novels for young readers. Born in 1958 in Dorsten, North Rhine-Westphalia, she first worked as a social worker and later as a book illustrator. She began writing novels in the late 1980s and built her career around stories in which children face hardship and danger. Her books have been translated into several languages, and by 2012 she had sold more than 20 million copies worldwide.