The new Hunger Games book, Sunrise on the Reaping, is all about grumpy mentor Haymitch Abernathy’s Hunger Games. Haymitch had a particularly awful Hunger Games; in his Quarter Quell, there were double the amount of Tributes in the arena. And after he outsmarted the Gamemakers to win, the Capitol took revenge on him and killed his family and his girlfriend. No wonder he’s jaded and cynical by the time Katniss’ story starts.
A new excerpt, via People, reveals yet another heartbreaking detail about Haymitch and the Games: his birthday is on Reaping Day.
So not only was he picked as the District 12 tribute on his birthday, but for the ensuing 24 years, he had to send two children to their deaths on his birthday. And we know from the first Hunger Games book that until Katniss and Peeta came along, there were no other Victors from District 12. Suzanne Collins, you’ve done it again.
Unlike other authors with huge franchises, Collins only pens another book set in the Hunger Games world when she has something to say. Longtime Hunger Games movie producer Nina Jacobson told Polygon in 2023 that Collins is selective about when she returns to this world. And in this case, Collins been very clear about what she wants to say.
“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 press release from Scholastic when the book was first announced. “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.”
Sunrise on the Reaping arrives in bookstores on March 18. It’s available for pre-order now. The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping will hit theaters on Nov. 20, 2026.
Source：https://www.polygon.com/books/509903/hunger-games-haymitch-abernathy-sunrise-on-the-reaping
