Hannibal Rising is a novel written by Thomas Harris, published in 2006. It is a prequel to his three previous books featuring his character, the cannibalistic serial killer Dr. Hannibal Lecter. The novel was released with an initial printing of at least 1.5 million copies and met with a mixed critical response. Audiobook versions have also been released, with Harris reading the text. The novel was adapted (by Harris himself) into a film of the same name in 2007, directed by Peter Webber.

Lecter is eight years old at the beginning of the novel (1941), living in Lecter Castle in Lithuania, when Operation Barbarossa, Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union, turns the Baltic region into a part of the bloodiest front line of World War II. Lecter, his sister Mischa, and his parents escape to the family's hunting lodge in the woods to elude the advancing German troops. After three years, the Nazis are finally driven out of the countries now occupied by the Soviet Union. During their retreat, however, a German Stuka destroys a Soviet tank that had stopped at the Lecter family's lodge looking for water. The explosion kills everyone but Lecter and Mischa. They survive in the cottage until six former Lithuanian militiamen, led by a Nazi collaborator named Vladis Grutas, storm and loot it. Finding no other food, they kill and cannibalize Mischa, while Lecter watches helplessly. He blacks out and is later found wandering and mute by a Soviet tank crew that takes him back to Lecter Castle, which is now a Soviet orphanage. Lecter is irreparably traumatized by the ordeal, and develops a savage obsession with avenging his sister's death.

Hannibal, son of Hamilcar Barca (247 – 183/182 BC) was a Punic Carthaginian military commander and tactician, generally considered one of the greatest military commanders in history. His father, Hamilcar Barca, was the leading Carthaginian commander during the First Punic War, his younger brothers were Mago and Hasdrubal, and he was brother-in-law to Hasdrubal the Fair.

Hannibal lived during a period of great tension in the Mediterranean, when the Roman Republic established its supremacy over other great powers such as Carthage, the Hellenistic kingdoms of Macedon, Syracuse, and the Seleucid empire. One of his most famous achievements was at the outbreak of the Second Punic War, when he marched an army, which included war elephants, from Iberia over the Pyrenees and the Alps into northern Italy. In his first few years in Italy, he won three dramatic victories—Trebia, Trasimene, and Cannae—and won over many allies of Rome. Hannibal occupied much of Italy for 15 years, but a Roman counter-invasion of North Africa forced him to return to Carthage, where he was decisively defeated by Scipio Africanus at the Battle of Zama. Scipio had studied Hannibal's tactics and brilliantly devised some of his own, and finally defeated Rome's nemesis at Zama, having previously driven Hasdrubal, Hannibal's brother, out of the Iberian Peninsula.

Hannibal Lecter M.D. is a fictional character in a series of horror novels by Thomas Harris and in the films adapted from them.

Lecter was introduced in the 1981 thriller novel Red Dragon as a brilliant psychiatrist and cannibalistic serial killer. The novel and its sequel, The Silence of the Lambs, feature Lecter as the secondary antagonist after the two serial killers in both novels. In the third novel, Hannibal, Lecter becomes the main character. His role as the antihero occurs in the fourth novel, Hannibal Rising, which explores his childhood and development into a serial killer.

The first film adapted from the Harris novels was Manhunter (based on Red Dragon) features Brian Cox as Lecter, spelled "Lecktor". In 2002, a second adaptation of Red Dragon was made under the original title, featuring Anthony Hopkins, who had played Lecter in the motion pictures The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal. Hopkins won an Academy Award for The Silence of the Lambs in 1991. In 2003, Hannibal Lecter (as portrayed by Hopkins) was chosen by the American Film Institute as the #1 movie villain.Empire magazine lists Lecter as the 5th Greatest Movie Character of All Time.

Gaspard Ulliel (French pronunciation: [ɡaspaʁ yljɛl]; born 25 November 1984) is a French film actor and model. He began appearing in made-for-television films during the late 1990s and early 2000s, and then began to be known as a film actor in France, as well as starring in the title role in the thriller Hannibal Rising.

Ulliel was born in Boulogne-Billancourt (a suburb of Paris) to a runway show producer mother and a stylist father. He has a scar on his left cheek as a result of an attack from a doberman when he attempted to ride the dog like a horse at the age of six. He says it increases his emotional acting abilities because it looks like a dimple. Ulliel attended the University of Saint-Denis, where he studied cinema. He began acting while he was still at school, appearing in Une Femme En Blanc, a film for French television. He also performed at the Cours Florent, where he was discovered by Les égarés director André Téchiné.

In 2007, he appeared on the cover of the January issue of French Vogue with Dutch supermodel Doutzen Kroes.