First excerpt from Hunger Games prequel features a familiar character: Corialanus Snow

The first excerpt from The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is here! And, after all our speculations, it features a character whom we all know already.

Illustration by Charles Chaisson for EW

Corialanus Snow.

Check out an excerpt below:

The grand staircase up to the Academy could hold the entire student body, so it easily accommodated the stream of officials, professors, and students headed for the reaping day festivities. Coriolanus climbed it slowly, attempting a casual dignity in case he caught anyone’s eye. People knew him—or at least they had known his parents and grandparents—and there was a certain standard expected of a Snow. This year, beginning this very day, he was hoping to achieve personal recognition as well. Mentoring in the Hunger Games was his final project before graduating from the Academy in midsummer. If he gave an impressive performance as a mentor, with his outstanding academic record, Coriolanus should be awarded a monetary prize substantial enough to cover his tuition at the University.

There would be twenty-four tributes, one boy and one girl from each of the twelve defeated districts, drawn by lottery to be thrown into an arena to fight to the death in the Hunger Games. It was all laid out in the Treaty of Treason that had ended the Dark Days of the districts’ rebellion, one of the many punishments borne by the rebels. As in the past, the tributes would be dumped into the Capitol Arena, a now-dilapidated amphitheater that had been used for sports and entertainment events before the war, along with some weapons to murder one another. Viewing was encouraged in the Capitol, but a lot of people avoided it. How to make it more engaging was the challenge. [READ MORE]

Now that we know Coriolanus will be chosen as the mentor for the District 12 girl, what do you think will happen?

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes will hit shelves on May 19, 2020. Preorder it HERE.