Werner Herzog - Collected Works (14 books)

* Werner Herzog - Collected Works (14 books)

WERNER HERZOG (b. 1942) is an internationally celebrated German filmmaker, actor, author and documentarian. He emerged as a leading voice of the New German Cinema movement in the late 1960s, quickly establishing a reputation for daring filmmaking that blurred the lines between fiction and reality. Beyond his legendary filmography, which includes dozens of features and documentaries, Herzog has maintained a prolific and impactful career as an author. His literary voice mirrors his cinematic one: hypnotic, uncompromising, and deeply philosophical, rendering the boundaries between his text and his life beautifully porous.

Herzog’s early literary footprint primarily consisted of personal journals and collected screenplays that captured his demanding creative process. His first major prose work was the vivid winter diary OF WALKING IN ICE (1978), which documented his three-week pedestrian pilgrimage from Munich to Paris. Written in sparse, poetic fragments, the text captures the raw physical toll of the elements alongside Herzog’s profound psychological isolation.

In the decades that followed, Herzog expanded his literary footprint by publishing screenplays, manifestos, and reflections that provided deep insight into his creative process. A monumental compilation of his onset journals arrived with CONQUEST OF THE USELESS (2004), culled from his personal journals during the notoriously chaotic production of his film Fitzcarraldo (1982), and offering a harrowing, intimate look into the Peruvian jungle where Herzog battled logistical nightmares, indigenous conflicts, and his own obsessions. This was followed by a definitive book-length interview collection, WERNER HERZOG: A GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED (2014), which features extensive conversations with author Paul Cronin regarding his vast career and life principles.

In his later years, Herzog shifted his focus toward historic fiction, philosophical essays, and comprehensive memoirs. His debut novel, THE TWILIGHT WORLD (2021), tells the extraordinary, semi-fictionalized story of Hiroo Onoda, the Japanese soldier who defended a remote Philippine island for three decades after World War II ended. Shortly thereafter, he released his autobiography, EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF AND GOD AGAINST ALL: A MEMOIR (2022), tracing his impoverished childhood in remote Bavaria to his global exploits as a filmmaker. His most recent publication in English, THE FUTURE OF TRUTH (2024), consists of reflections and anecdotes about truth and its representation, especially as it relates to Herzog's documentary films and his concept of "ecstatic truth", which is when a truth that is hidden by specific facts or conceptions becomes reachable through poetic imagination.

Finally, Herzog has published several major scripts and production prose, recently issued in three volumes as SCENARIOS (2017-2019) that document his early works. These are not traditional screenplays so much as fever dreams brimming with madness, greed, humor, and dark isolation that can shift dramatically during production. The scripts include: Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972); Land of Silence and Darkness (1971); Fitzcarraldo (1982); Signs of Life (1968); Even Dwarfs Started Small (1970); Fata Morgana (1971); Heart of Glass (1976); Stroszek (1977); Nosferatu (1979); Where the Green Ants Dream (1984); and Cobra Verde (1987). They allow us to observe Herzog’s working vision as each of these scenarios unfolds in a form often dramatically different from the film’s final version—as, in his own words, Herzog works himself up into “this kind of frenzy of high-caliber language and concepts and beauty.”


The following books are in ePUB and/or PDF format:

* Conquest of the Useless: Fever Dreams in the Jungle [tr. Winston] (Penguin, 2024) – ePUB
* Every Man for Himself and God against All: A Memoir [tr. Hofmann] (Penguin, 2023) – ePUB
* Fitzcarraldo: The Original Story [tr. Herzog & Greenberg] (Fjord Press, 1982) – PDF
* The Future of Truth [tr. Hofmann] (Penguin, 2025) – ePUB
* Of Walking in Ice (Minnesota, 2015) – ePUB / PDF
* Scenarios [ed. Herzog & Greenberg) MInnesota, 2017) – PDF
* Scenarios II [ed. Winston & Herzog] (MInnesota, 2018) – PDF
* Scenarios III [ed. Winston] (Minnesota, 2019) – PDF

== FICTION ==

* The Twilight World: A Novel [tr. Hofmann] (Penguin, 2022) – ePUB

== INTERVIEWS ==

* A Guide for the Perplexed: Conversations with Paul Cronin (Faber, 2014) – ePUB
* Herzog on Herzog [ed. Cronin] (Faber, 2002) – PDF
* Interviews [ed. Eric Ames] (Mississippi, 2014) – ePUB / PDF

== CONTRIBUTOR ==

* Every Night the Trees Disappear [Alan Greenberg] (Chicago Review, 2012) – ePUB / PDF
* Herzog by Ebert [Roger Ebert] (Chicago, 2017) – ePUB / PDF


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