The Hunger Games - Book

The Hunger Games is a young adult novel by American television writer and novelist Suzanne Collins. It was first published on September 14, 2008, in hardcover, featuring a cover designed by Tim O'Brien. It is written in the voice of 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives in the post-apocalyptic nation of Panem, where the countries of North America once existed. The Capitol, a highly advanced metropolis, holds hegemony over the rest of the nation. The Hunger Games are an annual event in which one boy and one girl aged 12 to 18 from each of the twelve districts surrounding the Capitol are selected by lottery to compete in a televised battle to the death until only one person remains. The book received mostly positive feedback from major reviewers and authors, including author Stephen King. It was praised for its storyline and character development, though some reviewers have noted similarities between Collins' book and the Japanese novel Battle Royale (1999), as well as other works. In writing The Hunger Games, Collins drew upon Greek mythology and contemporary reality television for thematic content. The novel won numerous awards, including the California Young Reader Medal, and was named one of Publishers Weekly's Best Books of the Year in 2008. The Hunger Games has been released in paperback and also as an audiobook and ebook. The hardcover had an initial print of 200,000 – twice doubled from the original 50,000. Since its release, the novel has been translated into 26 languages, and rights of production have been sold in 38 countries. The Hunger Games is the first novel in The Hunger Games trilogy, followed by Catching Fire, published on September 1, 2009, and Mockingjay, published on August 24, 2010. A film adaptation, directed by Gary Ross and co-written and co-produced by Collins herself, was released worldwide on March 23, 2012.