...Mr. Harris just handed in the manuscript for “Hannibal Rising” last month, and Bantam is rushing to publish the book in time for the crucial holiday sales season. It also hopes to capitalize on the February 2007 release of the movie version of the new novel, for which Mr. Harris also wrote the screenplay. The movie, which is produced by the Dino De Laurentis Company and marketed by the Weinstein Company, stars Gaspard Ulliel, the French co-star of the 2004 film “A Very Long Engagement,” as the young Dr. Lecter.

...Close readers of Mr. Harris’s previous novels, which also include “The Silence of the Lambs” and “Red Dragon,” may recall that Dr. Lecter saw his entire family killed during World War II in Eastern Europe. The new novel, which covers the young Hannibal from age 6 through 20, will shed more light on the circumstances of those deaths, with a focus on Dr. Lecter’s memories of his younger sister, Mischa.

Wrriten by: bloody-disgusting.com
Read original @: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0367959/

"Based on Thomas Harris' upcoming new book of the same name, this prequel shows a young Hannibal Lechter in three different phases of his life from childhood in Lithuania to his ten years in England up to his time in Russia before his capture by FBI agent Will Graham in Manhunter.

This is the story of the monster Hannibal Lecter's formative years. These experiences as a child and young adult led to his remarkable contribution to the fields of medicine, music, painting and forensics.

We begin in World War II at the medieval castle in Lithuania built by Dr. Lecter's forebear, Hannibal the Grim. The child Hannibal survives the horrors of the Eastern Front and escapes the grim Soviet aftermath to find refuge in France with the widow of his uncle, mysterious and beautiful Japanese descended from Lady Murasaki Shikibu, author of the Tale of Genji. Her kind and wise attentions help him understand his unbearable recollections of the war.

Remembering, he finds the means to visit the outlaw predators that changed him forever as they battened on helpless during the collapse of the Eastern Front. Hannibal helps these war criminals toward self-knowledge even as we see his own nature become clear to him."