Reading to Jorge Luis Borges between 1964 and 1968, the writer being already blind at the time, was an experience that marked him profoundly. His book A History of Reading was translated into almost every language ​and awarded the Prix Médicis in 1989. A Reading Diary, published in 2005, is a contemporary's intimate journal and a declaration of love to reading itself: the author reflects on reading his favorite books another time within a year. Further published by the S. Fischer Verlag were his novels All Men Are Liars (Alle Menschen lügen, 2010), A City of Words (Eine Stadt aus Worten, 2011) and The Overdiscriminating Lover (Zwei Liebhaber des Schattens, 2013).