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  • Published: 16 October 2025
  • ISBN: 9781529942422
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: Audio Download
  • RRP: $40.00

The Future of Truth




The follow-up to Werner Herzog’s acclaimed memoir, Every Man for Himself and God against All – an iconoclastic meditation on the nature of truth and lies, fact and fiction.

In this short sequel to his acclaimed memoir, the legendary filmmaker and global cultural icon explores one of his favourite topics: the nature of truth.

What if a lie is told to reveal some underlying truth? Are feelings that seem inappropriate, such as the hysteria following the death of a celebrity, any less real or true than the grief we feel over the death of a loved one? Even if the plot of an opera seems preposterous, can’t it still express strong human emotions that ring true with the audience?

At the heart of the book lies Werner Herzog’s concept of ‘ecstatic truth’ – a truth that is often hidden behind the facts and our conceptions of reality but can be gleaned through the poetic imagination, in art, literature and cinema, when we open ourselves up to an aesthetic experience.

Written in Herzog’s inimitable tyle, the stories, anecdotes and reflections take us from present-day deep fakes and the opportunities and perils of AI to Ancient Egyptian and Rome, where rulers resorted to lies and propaganda in the same way as governments do today; from Scott’s and Amundson’s race to the South Pole to alien abduction stories and the making of Herzog’s own films.

With its singular vision and unique voice, The Future of Truth is a compelling meditation on the relationship between fact and fiction, evidence and the imagination, by one of the most fascinating and idiosyncratic thinkers in the world today.

  • Published: 16 October 2025
  • ISBN: 9781529942422
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: Audio Download
  • RRP: $40.00

About the author

Werner Herzog

Werner Herzog was born in Munich on September 5, 1942. He grew up in a
remote mountain village in Bavaria and studied History and German Literature in
Munich and Pittsburgh.
He made his first film in 1961 at the age of 19. Since then he has produced,
written, and directed more than fifty feature- and documentary films, such as
AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD (1972), NOSFERATU (1978),
FITZCARRALDO (1982), LESSONS OF DARKNESS (1992), LITTLE DIETER
NEEDS TO FLY (1997), MY BEST FIEND (1999), INVINCIBLE (2000),
GRIZZLY MAN (2005), ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD (2007)
or CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS (2011).
Werner Herzog has published more than a dozen books of prose, and directed
as many operas.
Werner Herzog lives in Munich and Los Angeles.

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Praise for The Future of Truth

** PRAISE FOR WERNER HERZOG ** Herzog is in a category of one. You can't believe that a person like this stalks the earth. A complete original

Marina Hyde

Visionary

New Statesman

Herzog really is a kind of genius

Spectator

A singular poet

Big Issue

Werner Herzog has always seemed to be something more than human

Irish Times