A New Hunger Games Book (and Movie) Is Coming

Suzanne Collins' 5th book based in fictional Panem will be out next March
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Jun 6, 2024 12:10 PM CDT
Misinformation Inspires New Hunger Games Book
Suzanne Collins arrives at the Los Angeles premiere of "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay-Part 1" at the Nokia Theatre LA Live on Nov. 17, 2014.   (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)

Inspired by an 18th-century Scottish philosopher and the modern scourge of misinformation, Suzanne Collins is returning to the ravaged, postapocalyptic land of Panem for a new Hunger Games novel. Scholastic announced Thursday that Sunrise on the Reaping, the fifth volume of Collins' blockbuster dystopian series, will be published March 18, 2025, per the AP. The new book begins with the reaping of the 50th Hunger Games, set 24 years before the original Hunger Games novel, which came out in 2008, and 40 years after Collins' most recent book, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.

Collins has drawn upon Greek mythology and the Roman gladiator games for her earlier Hunger Games books. But for the upcoming novel, she cites the Scottish Enlightenment philosopher David Hume. "With Sunrise on the Reaping, I was inspired by David Hume's idea of implicit submission and, in his words, 'the easiness with which the many are governed by the few,'" Collins said in a statement. "The story also lent itself to a deeper dive into the use of propaganda and the power of those who control the narrative. The question 'Real or not real?' seems more pressing to me every day."

Film rights haven't yet been announced. All four previous books have been adapted into a multibillion-dollar movie franchise for Lionsgate. The first four Hunger Games books have sold more than 100 million copies and been translated into dozens of languages. Collins had seemingly ended the series after the 2010 publication of Mockingjay, writing in 2015 that it was "time to move on to other lands." But four years later, she stunned readers and the publishing world when she revealed she was working on what became The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, released in 2020 and set 64 years before the first book. (More books stories.)

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