“And when we finally stood up and turned to face the world, I could feel something climbing through me. I could feel it on its hands and knees inside me, rising up, rising up - and I smiled.I smiled, thinking, The hunger, because I knew it all too well.The hunger.The desire.Then, slowly, as we walked on, I felt the beauty of it, and I could taste it, like words inside my mouth.”

Australian-German writer

Markus Zusak is an Australian-German writer best known for the novels The Book Thief and The Messenger. His work has reached a wide international readership, and he won the Margaret Edwards Award in 2014. He is known above all for those two novels, which became international bestsellers. His writing is associated with fiction that has travelled well beyond his home audience.