“I told her I loved the howling sound of her harmonica. That seemed to be the limit of my courage that night, and even those spoken words had to struggle their way out of my mouth. It's all very well for words to build bridges, but sometimes I think it's a matter of knowing when to do it. Knowing when the time's right.”

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.