Every Man for Himself and God Against All: A Memoir

Legendary filmmaker and celebrated author Werner Herzog tells in his inimitable voice the story of his epic artistic career in a long-awaited memoir that is as inventive and daring as anything he has done before

WernerHerzogwas born in September 1942 in Munich, Germany, at a turning point in theSecondWorldWar. Soon Germany would be defeated and a new world would have to be made out the rubble and horrors of the war. Fleeing the Allied bombing raids,Herzog's mother took him and his older brothertoa remote, rustic part of Bavaria where he would spend much of his childhoodhungry, without running water, in deep poverty. It was there,as the new postwar order was emerging, that one of the most visionary filmmakers of the next seven decades was formed.

Until age 11,Herzogdid not even know of the existence of cinema. His interest in films began at age 15, but since no one was willing to finance them, he worked the night shift as a welder in a steel factory. He started to travel on foot. He made his first phone call at age 17, and his first film in 1961 at age 19. The wildlyproductive working life that followed-spanning the seven continents and encompassing both documentary and fiction-was an adventure as grand andotherworldly as any depicted in his many classic films.

Every Man for Himself and God Against All is at once a personal record of one of the great and self-invented lives of our time, and a singular literary masterpiece that will enthrall fans old and new alike. In a hypnotic swirl of memory,Herzoguntangles and relives his most important experiences and inspirations, telling his story for the first and only time.