The Hunger Games (novel) The Hunger Games (novel) The Hunger Games is a 2008 dystopian novel by the American writer Suzanne Collins. It is written in the voice 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 to the death. The book received critical acclaim from major
The Hunger Games (novel) 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