
It took Markus Zusak approximately three years to write The Book Thief. The author originally wrote the book for himself, as he thought no-one would ever read it.

The description of colour is used to distract Death the narrator to, in the words of Zusak, “to distract himself from al the mysery that surrounds him”. He loved the character so wrote early on that Rudy would die to prepare the reader and himself for the 14-year-old’s death. Markus Zusak stated that Rudy became his favourite character after he paints himself black with charcoal to become Olympian runner Jesse Owens. While a few errors were flared, he stated that his writing was pretty accurate. On top of interviewing his parents and reading books, he flew to Germany once the manuscript was finished to check the little details. Markus Zusak extensively researched the book to ensure accuracy. Death was inspired by the last line in the book ‘A River Runs Through It’, which offers the line “I’m haunted by waters”. He even tried writing in the third person. The Narratorĭeath was not the original narrator – Liesel was. When you see a soldier chase a boy down and beat him to the ground for being kind to somebody, when you see that when you’re six, what could you possibly make of that?” 5. They were both whipped, one for giving the bread, one for taking it. There was an old man who couldn’t keep up, and a boy gave him a piece of bread. It was people being herded to a concentration camp. She heard a noise that sounded like cattle being herded down the street. Markus said: “One of my mum’s stories was about something that happened when she was six.


Some parts of the novel were inspired by Zusak’s parent’s experience. The Book Thief was so successful that it remained on the New York Times bestseller list for 230 weeks. It looks like he was right, as it has sold eight million copies worldwide and has been translated into thirty languages. Markus Zusak redrafted The Book Thief a massive 200 times, believing the rewrites would make the novel stronger. The Book Thief may be based in Nazi Germany during World War II, but the novel was actually written by Australian author Markus Zusak, who wrote the novel in Sydney back in 2005. Lovers of this modern day classic should read the following 10 facts you won’t know about The Book Thief. The Book Thief is narrated by Death, who tells the story of Liesel Meminger, a 12-year-old girl who is living in Nazi Germany and is forced to live with foster parents Hans and Rosa Hubermann, and befriends a Jewish man who hides in their home during World War II. “It amazes me what humans can do, even when streams are flowing down their faces and they stagger on, coughing and searching, and finding.”
