Product Description
The Twilight World
Author: Werner Herzog
Format: Paperback
In 1944, Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda is ordered to hold Lubang Island in the Philippines at all costs, and he obeys until long after the war is over.
The Twilight World follows Onoda as he wages a private war in the jungle for thirty years after Japan's surrender in the Second World War. Convinced that every leaflet announcing peace is enemy propaganda, he survives on stolen rice, wild fruit and dwindling hope, watching his comrades die or surrender one by one.
As decades pass and the world moves on without him, Onoda's devotion to the Imperial army traps him between duty and delusion. The enemy he fights is no longer American soldiers, but time itself.
Based on real events, The Twilight World is twentieth-century historical fiction about obedience, pride and the slow unravelling of a man who cannot let go.
'An enthralling novel that explores the nature of time and warfare with great mastery' — Mail on Sunday
'Herzog. . .brilliantly blends fact and fiction in this fever dream of a novel' — Daily Mail
'A literary jewel set to sparkle against the backdrop of his monumental career in cinema' i
About the Author
Werner Herzog has produced, written and directed more than seventy features and documentary films, including the multi-award-winning Grizzly Man, Aguirre, The Wrath of God, Fitzcarraldo, My Best Fiend, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Nosferatu, Lessons of Darkness, Little Dieter Needs to Fly, Into the Inferno, Meeting Gorbachev and Encounters at the End of the World.
He has also directed many operas and published more than a dozen books of prose, including Conquest of the Useless, Of Walking on Ice, The Twilight World and, most recently, his acclaimed memoir, Every Man for Himself and God against All. In 2025 he was awarded a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice International Film Festival.
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