The Hunger Games is a young adult novel written by American television writer and novelist Suzanne Collins. It was first published on September 14, 2008, by Scholastic, in hardcover. It is written in the voice of 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives in a post-apocalyptic world in the country of Panem where the countries of North America once existed. The Capitol, a highly advanced metropolis, holds hegemony over the rest of the nation. The Hunger Games are an annual event in which one boy and one girl aged 12 to 18 from each of the 12 districts surrounding the Capitol are selected by lottery to compete in a televised battle until only one person is left.

The book has been released as a paperback and also as an audiobook and e-book. The Hunger Games had an initial print of 200,000 – twice doubled from the original 50,000. Since its initial release, the novel has been translated into 26 languages and rights of production have been sold in 38 countries. The book received mostly positive feedback from major reviewers and authors. The Hunger Games is the first novel in The Hunger Games trilogy, followed by Catching Fire, published on September 1, 2009, and Mockingjay, published on August 24, 2010.

Hunger is a prolonged condition in which insufficient amounts of food are available.

Hunger or The Hunger may also refer to:

Ariana Grande-Butera (born June 26, 1993) is an American actress, singer, and dancer. She made her performance debut on Broadway at age 15. Recently, she has gained attention for her role as Cat Valentine on the Nickelodeon sitcom Victorious.

Grande was born and raised in Boca Raton, Florida. She is of Italian descent, half Sicilian, half Abruzzese.

In 2008, Grande played the role of Charlotte in the musical 13 on Broadway, for which she won a National Youth Theatre Association Award. When she joined the musical, Grande left her high school, North Broward Preparatory School, but continued to be enrolled. The school sent materials to her for study with tutors. She played the role of Miriam in the first reading of the forthcoming musical Cuba Libre composed by Desmond Child. Grande teaches music and dance to children in South Africa each year as a member of Broadway in South Africa.

Grande plays the character Cat Valentine on the Nickelodeon television show Victorious, which premiered in March 2010.

Jennifer Shrader Lawrence (born August 15, 1990) is an American film and television actress. She had lead roles in TBS's The Bill Engvall Show and in the independent films The Burning Plain and Winter's Bone, for which she received nominations for the Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, Satellite Award, and the Screen Actors Guild Award. At age 20, she was the second youngest actress ever to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She is also known for playing Mystique in X-Men: First Class. In 2012, Lawrence achieved wider recognition starring as the heroine Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games, an adaptation of Suzanne Collins' best-selling novel of the same name. Her performance in the film garnered her notable critical praise and marked her as the highest grossing action heroine of all time. Lawrence's performances thus far have prompted Rolling Stone to define her as "the most talented young actress in America."

Lawrence was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, and has two older brothers. Her parents are Karen (née Koch), who runs a children's camp, and Gary Lawrence, who once owned a concrete construction firm, Lawrence & Associates. She acted in local theater and, by the age of 14, had decided to pursue an acting career, persuading her parents to take her to New York City to find a talent agent. Prior to finding success in Hollywood, Lawrence attended Kammerer Middle School. She graduated from high school two years early with a 3.9 average in order to begin a career in acting. While growing up and in between acting, Lawrence served as an assistant nurse at the children's summer day camp that her mother ran.

Joshua Ryan "Josh" Hutcherson (born October 12, 1992) is an American film and television actor. He began working in the early 2000s, appearing in several minor film and television roles. He gained wider exposure with major roles in the 2005 films Little Manhattan and Zathura, the 2006 comedy RV, the 2007 family adventure film Firehouse Dog, and the film adaptations of Bridge to Terabithia, Journey to the Center of the Earth and Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant. On March 30, 2008, Hutcherson won a Young Artist Award (for Leading Young Actor). Hutcherson was also featured on a Celebrity Teens edition of the hit show MTV Cribs, and portrayed Peeta Mellark in the 2012 film The Hunger Games. He will appear in the Red Dawn remake.

Josh Hutcherson was born in Union, Kentucky. His mother, Michelle, is a former Delta Air Lines employee who now assists Josh, and his father, Chris Hutcherson, is an analyst for the EPA. He has a younger brother, Connor, as well as many pets, including two dogs, Diesel and Nixon (a boxer). He has wanted to be an actor since he was four years old, but had only begun auditioning for roles in 2002, at the age of 9. He moved from Union to California, due to limited acting opportunities.