The Underdog, Omnibus Books (Norwood, South Australia, Australia), 1999. Markus Zusak (Sydney, 23 giugno 1975) è uno scrittore australiano autore, tra gli altri, dei romanzi destinati ai ragazzi La bambina che salvava i libri e Io sono il messaggero, diventati bestseller internazionali. In Italia è stato poi ristampato nel febbraio 2014 con il titolo omonimo al film in uscita Storia di una ladra di libri ed è stato il libro più venduto del 2014 con 450 001 copie. She even sent Zusak to Leading Edge, Australia’s largest independent booksellers’ conference, in March 2010, to read from the novel. “Then in May, at the very last moment, he emails me saying, ‘I can’t do it, it’s not going to happen.’” Paterson says she felt like driving over to Zusak’s house and “punching him in the head”. That didn’t work either. The book opens with the father returning and asking the boys to help him build a bridge on his property in the bush. It just made him angry.” Paterson rang Dominika. Dominika, who is trained in business management, handled the administrative and strategic side of Zusak’s work, looking over his agreements, liaising with his agent. Zusak lives in Woollahra, in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, in a brown brick townhouse with his wife Dominika, his two young children, Kitty and Noah, a pair of cranky dogs, and a 13-year-old cat named Brutus. He just receded into himself. Markus Zusak (born 23 June 1975) is an Australian writer of German origin.
I quit. He was never physical with letting it out, no tantrums, that’s not his personality. Like Bridge of Clay, the novel is populated by a cast of boldly drawn characters, including Max Vandenburg, a Jewish fist-fighter sheltered by the Hubermanns in their basement, and the foster father, Hans Hubermann, with whom Leisel bonds over their nascent love of books and words.
Zusak received many awards for The Book Thief, including the Michael L. Printz Honor and the Kathleen Mitchell Award (Australia). Markus Zusak is the international bestselling author of six novels, including The Book Thief and most recently, Bridge of Clay. The Messenger, published in 2002, won the 2003 CBC Book of the Year Award (Older Readers) and the 2003 NSW Premier's Literary Award (Ethel Turner Prize) in Australia and was a runner-up for the Printz Award in America. In 1999, Zusak’s first novel, The Underdog, was published after many initial rejections. “He runs like a wild animal. He felt as if the book was squashing him – physically squashing him. When I tell him I haven’t finished his book yet, he actually apologises for its length, all the while fussing about making me a cup of tea and asking if I’d like anything else, a glass of water, perhaps, or one of the triple-choc brownies that were bought especially for our interview. But, of course, there was a downside. School Library Journal, March, 2001, Edward Sullivan, review of Fighting Ruben Wolfe, p. 258; April, 2003, Janet Hilbun, review of Getting the Girl, p. 171. Zusak found a way through. He married Mika Zusak and he has two children. “Well, you know what you should have done, don’t you?” he told Kitty.