The sequel follows: "Izvestia" publishes a fragment of the new novel about "The Hunger Games"

The publication of excerpts of fresh works by the main authors of our time is a long-standing tradition of Izvestia. On the newspaper's pages you could be the first to read what Maxim Gorky, Mikhail Sholokhov, Andrei Voznesensky, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Vasily Shukshin, and Valentin Rasputin had written. Now we continue the tradition: here will appear only the most interesting and important, the first lines of the books that everyone is waiting for. Today we present the fifth novel of the series "The Hunger Games" "Dawn of the Harvest". The new book by Susan Collins is being prepared for release in Russia by AST publishing house and will appear on the shelves in March. This is a prequel to the series, the events take place 24 years before the first book, during the 50th "Hunger Games", the winner of which became Haymitch Ebernethy from District 12. "Izvestia" is the first to publish an excerpt from the new book and its cover.

Susan Collins, "Dawn of the Harvest" (excerpt)

- Happy birthday, Haymitch!

If you happen to be born on Harvest Day, on the plus side, you get a little more sleep. From there, it's all downhill from here. It's hardly worth the horror of the draw to get out of school. Even if your name doesn't get pulled, there's no birthday cake down anyone's throat after two kids are forcibly dragged off to the Capitol for slaughter. I roll over onto my other side and cover my head with the blanket.

- Happy Birthday! - My ten-year-old brother Sid shakes my shoulder. - He asked me to be your alarm clock! You said you wanted to get to the woods at dawn.

That's right. I'm hoping to get my work done before the ceremony and spend the rest of the day doing the two things I love most-lazing around and spending time with my girlfriend, Lenore Dove. My mother keeps me from doing that, and regularly reminds me that I should take any dirty and difficult job I can get, because even the last of the poor can make a few pennies. Considering what an eventful day it is, she'll probably give me some leeway if I do my chores around the house. The only people who can ruin my plans are the Games officials.

- Haymitch! - Cid shouts. - The sun is coming up!

- All right, all right. Me too!

I roll straight to the floor and put on shorts made from a government-issued flour sack. "Courtesy of the Capitol." Mama puts everything to work. She was widowed young when my father died in a coal mine fire, and raised Sid and me as a laundress, saving money on just about everything. The ash from the hearth goes into laundry soap, the crushed eggshells into fertilizer for the vegetable garden, and these shorts will someday make a woven doormat.

I finish dressing and toss Sid back into bed, where he immediately burrows into the patchwork quilt. In the kitchen, I grab a piece of cornbread-a birthday present-instead of the dark, coarse bakewell we make with Capitol flour. In the backyard, Mom is already busily stirring with a stick in the boilermaker, her arms straining as she flips on her mining overalls. She's only thirty-five, but life's hardships have already drawn deep furrows in her face.

Mom notices me in the doorway and wipes her forehead.

- Congratulations on your sixteenth birthday! The sauce is on the stove.

- Thanks, Mom! - Before I left the house, I had time to look in the pot of stewed plums and put a couple on bread. I found plums in the woods just the other day, and it's so nice to find them hot and sweet on the stove!

- We need to fill the tank today," Mom says as I walk by.

We have cold water at the faucet, but the pressure is so low that you couldn't fill a bucket in a hundred years. We collect rainwater in a special barrel, in which Mom - for a fee - rinses things (so they get softer), and for regular washing we use well water. Even with Sid's help, fiddling with the pump and filling the tank takes a couple hours.

- Can't it wait until tomorrow? - I ask.

- The water is running low, and I have a mountain of laundry.

- Then let's do it this afternoon," I say, trying to hide my disappointment. If Harvest is over by one o'clock and we don't get elected this year, I'll be done with the water by three and still have time to see Lenore Dove.

The gray, shabby houses of Slag are safely hidden by the haze. A peaceful picture, if it weren't for the cries of children having nightmares. Over the past few weeks, as the Fiftieth Hunger Games approach, these sounds have been increasing in number, as have my anxious thoughts, though I try my best not to give in to them, as if trying to argue with them. Second Quarterly Massacre. Twice as many kids. There's no need to worry, I tell myself, there's nothing I can do about it. It's like two Hunger Games at the same time. There's no way to influence the outcome of the Harvest or what follows. So don't feed your nightmares. Don't let yourself panic. Don't indulge the Capitol. He's already taken almost everything.

Synchro : Daria Tselovalnikova.