So after Thomas Harris and Hollywood ran the character into the ground after the second movie, it’s been years of shaking my head and saying, “Man, nothing’s been the same since Anthony Hopkins gave his Oscar acceptance speech.” Twice! (I’m pretty sure this is the literary equivalent of claiming to have seen a band in a bar with eleven other people long before their first record deal.) Hell, I’m so Hannibal-hip that I’d caught Brian Cox playing him in Michael Mann’s adaptation Manhunter, and I didn’t just see it on VHS like all the other late-comers, I actually saw it in the theater. I’d read this years before the book of The Silence of the Lambs came out and led to the excellent film adaptation that skyrocketed Hannibal to the top of pop culture villains. You can preorder a copy here.When it comes to Hannibal Lecter, I’m like one of those music hipster douche bags that everyone hates because I’ll snootily declare that I knew about him long before most people did and that he’s sucked ever since he got really famous.

Harris’ as-of-yet-untitled new novel will be released on May 21, 2019. Harris’s novels have sold millions of copies, and scren adaptations of his work have made Hannibal Lecter into one of pop culture’s most iconic villains. His most recent work, Hannibal Rising, came out over a decade ago in 2006. These include Red Dragon (1981), The Silence of the Lambs (1988) and Hannibal (1999). The publisher also confirmed to the AP that Hannibal the Cannibal will not be making an appearance.Īpart from Black Sunday, Harris has only released four novels, all of which feature Lecter. Grand Central Publishing announced Wednesday that Harris’ forthcoming novel will be his first “stand-alone thriller” since his 1975 debut, Black Sunday. All five of his novels have been made into films, the most critically acclaimed being The Silence of the Lambs, which became only the third movie in the history of the Academy Awards to sweep the Oscars in all top five categories (Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Picture).īut there’s one major difference between his past novels and his new work: There will be no Lecter in it. Harris, 78, is an American writer best known for his series of suspense novels surrounding the character Dr. The Silence of the Lambs author Thomas Harris has a new novel set for publication in May, his first to come out in over a decade.

Hannibal novel series