Editing Hannibal Lecter (section)

====''Hannibal Rising''====
Harris wrote a 2006 prequel, ''[[Hannibal Rising]]'', after film producer [[Dino De Laurentiis]] (who owned the cinematic rights to the Lecter character) announced an intended film project depicting Lecter's childhood and development into a serial killer with or without Harris' help. Harris would also write the film's screenplay.

The novel chronicles Lecter's early life, from his birth into a family of the [[Lithuanian nobility]] in 1933, to being orphaned, along with his beloved younger sister Mischa, in 1944 when a [[Nazi]] [[Stuka]] bomber attacks a [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] [[tank]] in front of their forest hideaway. Shortly thereafter, he and Mischa are captured by a band of [[Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy|Nazi collaborators]], who murder and cannibalize Mischa before her brother's eyes; Lecter later learns that the collaborators also fed him Mischa's remains.

Irreparably traumatized, Lecter escapes from the deserters and wanders through the forest, dazed and unable to speak. He is found and taken back to his family's old castle, which had been converted into a Soviet [[orphanage]], where he is bullied by the other children and [[Child abuse|abused]] by the dean.

He is adopted by his uncle Robert and Robert's [[Japanese people|Japanese]] wife, Lady Murasaki, who nurses him back to health and teaches him to speak again. Robert dies shortly after adopting Lecter, who forms a close, pseudo-romantic relationship with Murasaki. During this time he also shows great intellectual aptitude, entering medical school at a young age and distinguishing himself.

Despite his seemingly comfortable life, Lecter is consumed by a savage obsession with avenging Mischa's death. He kills for the first time as a teenager, using a [[katana]] [[sword]] beheading a [[Racism|racist]] fishmonger who insulted Murasaki. He then methodically tracks down, [[torture]]s, and murders each of the men who had killed his sister. In the process of taking his revenge, he forsakes his relationship with Murasaki and seemingly loses all traces of his humanity. The novel ends with Lecter being accepted to [[Johns Hopkins Hospital]].