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The Future of Truth
  • Published: 28 October 2025
  • ISBN: 9781847928405
  • Imprint: Bodley Head
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 128
  • RRP: $35.00

The Future of Truth

Formats & editions
Hardback
28 Oct 2025
EBook
16 Oct 2025
Audiobook
16 Oct 2025
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A timely and compelling meditation on the nature of truth and lies, fact and fiction, by the legendary filmmaker and global cultural icon.

What if a lie is told to reveal some underlying truth? Are feelings that seem inappropriate, such as hysteria following the death of a celebrity, any less 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 emotions that ring true with the audience?

At the heart of this fascinating and iconoclastic 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 style, these stories, anecdotes and reflections take us from present-day deep fakes and the opportunities and perils of AI to ancient Egypt and Rome, where rulers resorted to lies and propaganda in the same way as governments do today; from Scott and Amundsen’s race to the South Pole to alien abduction claims 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 imagination – by one of today’s most fascinating and idiosyncratic thinkers.
  • Published: 28 October 2025
  • ISBN: 9781847928405
  • Imprint: Bodley Head
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 128
  • RRP: $35.00
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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.

portrait photo of Werner Herzog

Also by Werner Herzog

Every Man for Himself and God against All
The Twilight World
Of Walking In Ice
See all

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

Michael Hofmann’s sparkling and inventive translation from the original German…somehow makes Herzog more Herzog in tone

Guardian

Like the strange, enchanting films for which he is best known, Herzog’s seventh book defies the usual conventions of structure, narrative arc and the delineation of fact from fiction, even as it addresses the very subject of truth … It’s like listening to a fireside monologue from an entertaining uncle … Compelling … A collection of uniquely Herzogian mindfarts … Absurd, profound or an ecstatically truthful mix of the two

Farrah Jarral, Guardian