The Problem of Growing up During the Wartime in Markus Zusak’s Novel “The Book Thief”

Abstract

Markus Zusak was born in 1975 in Sydney, Australia, as the youngest of four children of German and Austrian immigrants. His novel “The Book Thief” is the tale of orphan Liesel Meminger, who finds companionship and a new family in a tiny village in Germany during World War II. Zusak picked the topic in part to relate the experiences his parents told him about growing up during the war in Austria and Germany. “What I wanted to do... was write someone’s favourite novel,” Zusak explained in an interview. “The Book Thief” is set in Germany in the years 1939-1943 and relates the narrative of Liesel, as told by Death, who has in his hands the book she wrote about all these years. In that sense, they are both book thieves. Liesel steals haphazardly at first, then deliberately, yet she is never greedy. Death takes Liesel’s notebook when she leaves it in her torment, among the ruins of what was once her home, and carries it with him.