Hannibal's Origins Explained in Next Novel

Posted on October 31, 2004

Readers will finally learn how Hannibal become a cannibal in the next novel in the Hannibal Lecter series. The new Thomas Harris novel, called Behind the Mask, will be published in 2005. According to the Times Online Lecter's problems began when starving Nazis killed and ate his elder sister. The Times reports that after the Nazi killed his parents, Hannibal "and Mischa, his elder sister, had to fend for themselves in the winter of 1944. They lived in a barn until starving soldiers found them. The men decided to eat one of the children and chose Mischa because she was fatter, killing her with an axe. It was the defining moment in Lecter�s life."

Source: Times Online