I Am the Messenger Study Guide

Markus Zusak was born in Sydney in 1975 to German and Austrian immigrant parents. He studied English and History at the University of New South Wales and worked as a high school teacher before gaining international success for his novels. He began writing as a teenager, and his first novel, The Underdog, was published in 1999. He wrote two sequels to his first novel before garnering greater mainstream success for his Young Adult novel I Am the Messenger in 2002. In 2006, he published his most successful book, The Book Thief, which received international acclaim and was later adapted into the film by the same name. Zusak currently lives and writes in Sydney, Australia.

In the early 1990s, Australia experienced its greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression, resulting in 11.4% unemployment and a general discontentment and loss of financial confidence among Australians. The 1990s also saw a major change in Australia’s population demographics, with nearly 1 in 4 Australians coming from overseas. These dynamics of change and deprivation are reflected in the plot of I Am the Messenger, with many of the people Ed Kennedy helps living in poverty or dealing with related economic and social stresses. Indeed, Ed himself is from a poor neighborhood where many people struggle to find jobs and drug use, violence, and family instability are common.

Markus Zusak’s most successful work is The Book Thief, another Young Adult novel, though that book is set in Germany during World War II. Zusak has said that one of his favorite novels, and an important influence on his writing style, is Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. Additionally, one of the missions in I Am the Messenger is connected to the book The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, which concerns a young woman struggling with mental illness.