The Hunger Games is a first person

First-person narrative

First-person point of view is a narrative mode where a story is narrated by one character at a time, speaking for and about themselves. First-person narrative may be singular, plural or multiple as well as being an authoritative, reliable or deceptive "voice" and represents point of view in the...

 young-adult

Young adult literature

Young-adult fiction or young adult literature , also juvenile fiction, is fiction written for, published for, or marketed to adolescents and young adults, roughly ages 14 to 21. The Young Adult Library Services of the American Library Association defines a young adult as "someone between the...

 science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 novel written by Suzanne Collins

Suzanne Collins

Suzanne Collins is an American television writer and novelist.-Early life:Suzanne Collins is the daughter of an Air Force officer. She graduated from the Alabama School of Fine Arts and earned her M.F.A. from New York University in Dramatic Writing....

. It was originally published on September 14, 2008, by Scholastic. It is the first book of the Hunger Games trilogy

The Hunger Games trilogy

The Hunger Games trilogy is a young-adult adventure science fiction series written by Suzanne Collins. The trilogy consists of The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay....

. It introduces sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen

Katniss Everdeen

Katniss Everdeen is the main character of Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games trilogy. Her name comes from an edible plant called katniss. Jennifer Lawrence is set to portray Katniss in the upcoming movie The Hunger Games, directed by Gary Ross....

, who lives in a post-apocalyptic world in the country of Panem where the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 once existed. This is where a government working in a central city called the Capitol holds power. In the book, the Hunger Games are an annual televised event where the Capitol chooses one boy and one girl aged 12 to 18 from each of 12 districts for a massive televised battle in which only one person can survive.

Collins says that the idea for The Hunger Games came from channel surfing on television.