Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images(LOS ANGELES) — If you’ve been missing the world of Katniss Everdeen since the final Hunger Games movie, here’s some good news: Author Suzanne Collins is bringing out a prequel to the best-selling book series next year.
The currently untitled book will arrive May 19, 2020. It takes place in the world of Panem, on the morning of the reaping of the Tenth Hunger Games: 64 years before the events of the original books.
In a statement, Collins says, “With this book, I wanted to explore the state of nature, who we are, and what we perceive is required for our survival.”
“The reconstruction period ten 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,” she adds.
As fans of the Hunger Games series know, the Dark Days took place when the Districts rose in rebellion against the Capitol. When the rebellion was put down, the Capitol instituted the Hunger Games — in which a boy and a girl from each District must fight to the death in a televised competition — in order to remind the Districts that the Capitol hasn’t forgiven them.
The Hunger Games books debuted in 2008. More than 100 million copies of the trilogy –– The Hunger Games, Catching Fire and Mockingjay — have been sold. The four Hunger Games movies, starring Jennifer Lawrence as the bow-and-arrow wielding freedom fighter Katiniss Everdeen, have grossed about three billion dollars at the box office.
Lionsgate, the studio who made the films, has said in the past that it might continue the film series via prequels, so this new book may very well end up in a theater near you.
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