Markus Zusak

Biography

Markus Zusak was born in 1975 in Sydney, Australia, the youngest of four children of Austrian and German immigrant parents. His mother grew up in Munich during the war; his father was from Vienna. As children, Zusak and his siblings were told stories by their parents about wartime Germany and Austria — stories that included an account of Jewish prisoners being marched through a Munich suburb and a girl who gave bread to one of them. These stories became the emotional core of The Book Thief. Zusak has said he wanted to write a book that 'did justice to the stories I'd heard growing up.' He spent three years writing and rewriting The Book Thief before it was published in Australia in 2005.

Markus Zusak at a glance