Grab your bow and arrow, it’s time to head back to Panem.
Suzanne Collins announced the release of a new Hunger Games novel, titled Sunrise on the Reaping, which will land in bookstores on March 18, 2025.
“With Sunrise on the Reaping, I was inspired by [Scottish Enlightenment professor] David Hume’s idea of implicit submission and, in his words, ‘the easiness with which the many are governed by the few,’” Collins, 61, told the Associated Press on Thursday, June 6. “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.”
Collins’ upcoming book will mark the fifth chapter in her blockbuster series, set 24 years before the original Hunger Games took place. The original trilogy — which follows a group of teens forced to battle for their lives in a dystopian world — seemed to have come to an end back in 2015, when the author announced that she was ready to say goodbye to her characters.
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“Having spent the last decade in Panem, it’s time to move on to other lands,” Collins wrote in an open letter. “…To all the readers and viewers who have accompanied Katniss on her journey, thank you for playing a role in The Hunger Games, you are truly a vital part of the experience.”
Collins’ retirement from the beloved series didn’t last long. In 2019, she revealed that she was releasing a prequel, dubbed The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, which would be set 64 years before the original series started.
“With this book, I wanted to explore the state of nature, who we are, and what we perceive is required for our survival,” she said in a statement. “The reconstruction period 10 years after the war, commonly referred to as the Dark Days — as the country of Panem struggles back to its feet — provides fertile ground for characters to grapple with these questions and thereby define their views of humanity.”
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Rachel Zegler, who starred in the 2023 film adaptation of Songbirds and Snakes, shared her excitement on X over seemingly manifesting this new book, retweeting a message she wrote back in 2021, which read, “Girls don’t want boys. girls want Suzanne Collins to release a Haymitch Abernathy origin trilogy.”
Zegler, 23, followed up her tweet by writing, “You’re welcome guys.”
Jennifer Lawrence starred as Katniss Everdeen in the initial Hunger Games film franchise, which featured four movies: The Hunger Games, Catching Fire and Mockingjay – Part 1 and Part 2. The series has grossed a total of $3.3 billion worldwide.
