The Hunger Games (novel)

The Hunger Games
Cover of the novel, showing the title in white text on a black and grey background, above a depiction of a gold pin featuring a bird in flight, its wings spread and an arrow clasped in its beak.
North American first edition cover
AuthorSuzanne Collins
Cover artistTim O'Brien
LanguageEnglish
SeriesThe Hunger Games trilogy
GenreAdventure
Science fiction[1]
PublishedSeptember 14, 2008 (Scholastic Press)
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint (hardcover, paperback)
Pages374
ISBN978-0-439-02352-8
OCLC181516677
LC ClassPZ7.C6837 Hun 2008
Preceded byThe Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes 
Followed byCatching Fire 

The Hunger Games is a 2008 dystopian young adult novel by the American writer Suzanne Collins. It is written in the perspective of 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives in the future, post-apocalyptic nation of Panem in North America. The Capitol, a highly advanced metropolis, exercises political control over the rest of the nation. The Hunger Games is an annual event in which one boy and one girl aged 12–18 from each of the twelve districts surrounding the Capitol are selected by lottery to compete in a televised battle royale to the death.

The book received critical acclaim from major reviewers and authors. It was praised for its plot and character development. In writing The Hunger Games, Collins drew upon Greek mythology, Roman gladiatorial games, and contemporary reality television for thematic content. The novel won many 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 was first published in hardcover on September 14, 2008, by Scholastic, featuring a cover designed by Tim O'Brien. It has since been released in paperback and also as an audiobook and ebook. After an initial print of 200,000, the book had sold 800,000 copies by February 2010. Since its release, The Hunger Games has been translated into 26 languages, and publishing rights have been sold in 38 territories. The novel is the first in The Hunger Games trilogy, followed by Catching Fire (2009) and Mockingjay (2010). A film adaptation, directed by Gary Ross and co-written and co-produced by Collins herself, was released in 2012.

  1. ^ "Mockingjay proves the Hunger Games is must-read literature". io9. August 26, 2010. Archived from the original on July 9, 2013. Retrieved February 12, 2013.