Inspired by an 18th-century Scottish philosopher and the modern scourge of misinformation, Suzanne Collins is returning to the ravaged, post-apocalyptic land of Panem for a new Hunger Games novel.
Scholastic announced on Thursday that Sunrise on the Reaping, the fifth volume of Collins’s blockbuster dystopian series, will be published on 18 March 2025. 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’s most recent book, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, which was published in 2020.
Collins had 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.”
Ellie Berger, president of Scholastic Trade, sang praises for Collins and the upcoming book.
“Suzanne Collins has done it again, bringing us back to the world of Panem in order to ask us important questions about our own world,” said Berger, the Hollywood Reporter reported. “Sunrise on the Reaping is a remarkable book, bringing new complexity, perspective and revelations to a piece of the Hunger Games story that readers have longed to know more about.”
On social media, fans widely shared their excitement for the latest Hunger Games addition.
“It’s time to reread the books for the 4th time,” said one commenter on X.
Another thrilled admirer wrote: “IS THIS REAL?? LIKE ACTUALLY?!”
Film rights have not yet been announced. All four previous books have been adapted into movies, a multibillion-dollar franchise for Lionsgate that featured Jennifer Lawrence portraying heroine Katniss Everdeen in the film versions of The Hunger Games, Catching Fire and Mockingjay, the last of which came out in two installments.
The first four Hunger Games books have sold more than 100m 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, set 64 years before the first book.
The film version of Songbirds and Snakes, starring Tom Blyth and Rachel Zegler, came out last year. The film proved to be a box office hit, earning a whopping $337.4m.
The Hunger Games series has also had a resounding international impact beyond the books and films.
Since 2014, a three-fingered salute that first debuted in the film franchise was adopted by activists in south-east Asia as a symbol for resistance and support for democracy.
“We knew that it would be easily understood to represent concepts of freedom, equality, solidarity,” said Thai pro-democracy activist Sirawith Seritiwat in a 2021 Guardian interview.
Seritiwat added that the critique of authoritarianism in the Hunger Games franchise struck a chord with youth demonstrators.
“It was partly because the anti-coup situation back then felt similar to scenes in the Hunger Games film, where people put three fingers up towards President Snow,” he added.
The Associated Press contributed reporting
