Description

‘A potent, vaporous fever dream; a meditation on truth, lies, illusion and time’ NEW YORK TIMES

In his first novel, the great filmmaker, Werner Herzog, tells the incredible story of a Japanese soldier who defended a small island for twenty-nine years after the end of World War II.

Hold the island until the Imperial army’s return. You are to defend its territory by guerrilla tactics, at all costs… There is only one rule: you are forbidden to die by your own hand. In the event of your capture by the enemy, you are to give them all the misleading information you can.

In 1944, on Lubang Island in the Philippines, with Japanese troops about to withdraw, Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda was given orders by his superior officer. So began Onoda’s long campaign, during which he became fluent in the hidden language of the jungle. Soon weeks turned into months, months into years, and years into decades – until eventually time itself seemed to melt away. All the while Onoda continued to fight his fictitious war, at once surreal and tragic, at first with other soldiers, and then, finally, alone, a character in a novel of his own making.

‘Herzog’s writing bristles with the same eerie and uncompromising energy as his films. His jungle pulses with hallucinatory life’ Guardian

Publisher Review

(praise for Of Walking In Ice:) Herzog's existential journey through a hostile winter landscape is one of the great modern pilgrimages - a record of physical suffering, of hallucination and ecstatic revelation, of portents and animals, of the wreckage of history and myth. Of Walking in Ice has the eerie power of the best fairytales. It hits you with the force of dreams and leaves you with the taste of snow-filled air -- Helen MacDonald, author H is for Hawk (praise for Of Walking In Ice:) Surely the strangest, strongest walking book I know, it tells the story of a winter pilgrimage, made in desperation and in hope. At once a diary, a blizzard of weather and memories, and the record of a ritual: only Herzog could have written this weird, slender classic -- Robert Macfarlane, author of Underland (Praise for Conquest of the Useless:) Hypnotic... Any book by Mr. Herzog...turns his devotees into cryptographers. It is ever tempting to try to fathom his restless spirit and his determination to challenge fate -- New York Times