Markus Zusak
Markus Zusak
Markus Frank Zusak,is an Australian writer. He is best known for The Book Thief and The Messenger, two novels for young adults which have been international best-sellers. He won the annual Margaret Edwards Award in 2014 for his contribution to young-adult literature published in the US...
NationalityAustralian
ProfessionYoung Adult Author
Date of Birth23 June 1975
CountryAustralia
memories heart air
So many humans. So many colours. They keep triggering inside me. They harass my memory. I see them tall in their heaps, all mounted on top of each other. There is air like plastic, a horizon like setting glue. There are skies manufactured by people, punctured and leaking, and there are soft, coal-coloured clouds, beating, like black hearts. And then. There is death. Making his way through all of it. On the surface: unflappable, unwavering. Below: unnerved, untied, and undone.
brother growing-up memories
Living in Sydney, I've taken the chance to start surfing again. One of my best memories of growing up is catching my first proper wave and surfing across it and my brother cheering at me from the shore.
morning brother memories
I guess I'm what you call a slush-piler. I just sent my manuscripts to the slush pile of publishers and hoped for the best. Over seven years, I was rejected seven times on three different books. The fourth attempt was picked up by a small publisher, and I still have great memories of staying up all night, talking to my brother and sisters (my dad called me at 2:30 in the morning because I was overseas).
memories cutting long
I also fear that nothing really ends at the end. Things just keep going as long as memory can wield its ax, always finding a soft part in your mind to cut through and enter.
trying firsts colour
First the colours. Then the humans. That’s usually how I see things. Or at least, how I try.
humans
I am haunted by humans.
child gem love page playing
I like the idea that every page in every book can have a gem on it. It's probably what I love most about writing - that words can be used in a way that's like a child playing in a sandpit, rearranging things, swapping them around.
books books-and-reading step teenage
So many teenage books say, 'This is in your voice, this is about you,' and that's great. We really need that. But we also need books that say, 'This is also for you, but you need to come up here, to step up to this.
running winning years
He's most likely robbing the bank as a paycheck on the world for winning the ugliness prize at his local fete three years running.
two world week
Two weeks to change the world, fourteen days to destroy it.
voice not-sure rumours
My voice is like a rumour. I'm not sure if it came out or not, or if it is true.
dog fall doors
I suppose he'll die soon. I'm expecting it, like you do for a dog that's seventeen. There's no way to know how I'll react. He'll have faced his own placid death and slipped without a sound inside himself. Mostly, I imagine I'll crouch there at the door, fall onto him, and cry hard into the stench of his fur. I'll wait for him to wake up, but he won't. I'll bury him. I'll carry him outside, feeling his warmth turn to cold as the horizon frays and falls down in my backyard. For now, though, he's okay. I can see him breathing. He just smells like he's dead.
running laughing moments
We both laugh and run and the moment is so thick around me that i feel like dropping into it to let it carry me.
listening tire
And I stop listening to me, because to put it bluntly, I tire me.