The Australian literary community has been grieving at the news of John Marsden’s death late last year. In the decade before the releases of Harry Potter, Twilight and The Hunger Games, Marsden had a powerful impact on the young adult publishing industry.
Even publishers were initially wary of the book. “All the experts I spoke to said it was essential to give teenagers short books,” Marsden recalled in his memoir Marsden on Marsden. “Yet everywhere I looked, I saw teenagers avidly reading The Lord of the Rings.”
