Suzanne Collins Announces Fifth Hunger Games Installment, ‘Sunrise on the Reaping’
Suzanne Collins is returning to Panem with a new Hunger Games book. Scholastic announced on Thursday that Sunrise on the Reaping will be published on 18 March 2025. This book is set 24 years before the first Hunger Games novel, which came out in 2008, and 40 years after Collins’s most recent book, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, published in 2020.
Collins drew inspiration from an 18th-century Scottish philosopher named 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. “The story also looks at the use of propaganda and the power of those who control the narrative. The question ‘Real or not real?’ seems more important to me every day.”
Ellie Berger, president of Scholastic Trade, praised Collins and the upcoming book. “Suzanne Collins has done it again, bringing us back to Panem to ask important questions about our own world,” said Berger. “Sunrise on the Reaping is a remarkable book, adding new complexity and revelations to a part of the Hunger Games story that readers have long wanted to know more about.”
Fans on social media are very excited about the new book. “It’s time to reread the books for the 4th time,” said one commenter on X. Another fan wrote: “IS THIS REAL?? LIKE ACTUALLY?!”
There is no news yet about a movie adaptation. Lionsgate has made all four previous books into movies, featuring Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen. These movies were very successful, making billions of dollars.
The first four Hunger Games books have sold more than 100 million copies and been translated into many languages. Collins had said she was done with the series after the 2010 release of Mockingjay. But in 2019, she surprised fans by announcing The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. The movie version of Songbirds and Snakes, starring Tom Blyth and Rachel Zegler, came out last year and made $337.4 million at the box office.
The Hunger Games series has had a big impact around the world. Since 2014, activists in Southeast Asia have used a three-fingered salute from the movies as a symbol of 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. The Hunger Games’ critique of authoritarianism resonated with many young demonstrators.
With Sunrise on the Reaping, Suzanne Collins continues to explore themes of power, propaganda, and resistance, making the series relevant for today’s world. Fans are eagerly waiting to return to Panem with this new book.