
The Twilight World
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Werner Herzog
“A potent, vaporous fever dream; a meditation on truth, lie, illusion, and time that floats like an aromatic haze through Herzog’s vivid reconstruction of Onoda’s war.” —The New York Times Book Review
The national bestseller by the great filmmaker Werner Herzog.
The great filmmaker Werner Herzog, in his first novel, tells the incredible story of Hiroo Onoda, a Japanese soldier who defended a small island in the Philippines for twenty-nine years after the end of World War II
In 1997, Werner Herzog was in Tokyo to direct an opera. His hosts asked him, Whom would you like to meet? He replied instantly: Hiroo Onoda. Onoda was a former soldier famous for having quixotically defended an island in the Philippines for decades after World War II, unaware the fighting was over. Herzog and Onoda developed an instant rapport and met many times, talking and unraveling the story of Onoda’s long war.
At the end of 1944 on Lubang Island, with Japanese troops about to withdraw, Onoda stayed behind under orders from his superior officer. For years, Onoda continued to fight his fictitious war—at first with other soldiers, and then, finally, alone, a character in a novel of his own making.
In The Twilight World, Herzog immortalizes and imagines Onoda’s years of absurd yet epic struggle in an inimitable, hypnotic style—part documentary, part poem, and part dream—that will be instantly recognizable to fans of his films. The result is a novel completely unto itself: a glowing, dancing meditation on the purpose and meaning we give our lives.
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Critic reviews
One of The New Yorker’s Best Books of 2022
“[A] potent, vaporous fever dream; a meditation on truth, lie, illusion and time that floats like an aromatic haze through Herzog’s vivid reconstruction of Onoda’s war . . . Hofmann’s resonant translation conveys the portentous shimmer of Herzog’s voice.”—New York Times Book Review
“[A] wondrous first novel . . .”—The New Yorker
“[A] spare and lyric tale . . . In his feverish search for ecstatic truths, Herzog has given readers a portal into human folly, self-discipline and domination—surely his life’s work.”—Washington Post
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