<P> 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 . </P>
when was the first hunger games book published
2008