Leon de Winter's debut publication (1976) had a telling title: Over de leegte van de wereld [About the emptiness of the world]. In his work, Leon de Winter tries to fill this emptiness with stories. In his stories, he interprets reality and tries to discover the motives that drive his characters.

It was precisely for this tracing that he was awarded the Welt-Literature Prize by the German newspaper Die Welt in 2002. The jury honored him "for his novels, which are both complex in structure and exciting to read, in which the author is highly comical while also extremely insightful recounting about the drivenness of modern man" (Siem Bakker).

Ten years after his debut in the Netherlands, Leon de Winters' first German translation was published by Aufbau Verlag in Berlin under the somewhat ponderous title Die (ver)Bildung des jüngeren Dürers. In this book, which describes the meanderings of a young, unemployed ex-convict, the main character tries to free himself from the lies that define his life following the motto of "Let's get out of here!". A convincing "A psychogram of a sensitive young person" (Sturm, 1987) facing "an existance devoid of meaning" (Sturm, 1987). When the book appeared, the Berlin Wall had not yet fallen and the reviews turned out accordingly:

The same review also mentions "strained, somewhat mannered prose", apparently not really compelling thus. But Aufbau Verlag remained faithful to its author. In 1990, Die (ver)Bildung des jüngeren Dürers was still broadcast as a radio play by Radio DDR, but in search of new readers Aufbau chose a new title for the story (Nur weg hier! Die Abenteuer eines neuen Taugenichts [Let's get out of here! The Adventures of a new ne'er-do-well]) a few years later, and presented three new editions of the translation in the course of the 1990s, each time with a new cover.

When the debut novel of Leon de Winter's wife, Jessica Durlacher, was translated into German by his translator Hanni Ehlers (#Translators), it was only natural that it was published by Diogenes. Das Gewissen [The Conscience] - the best-selling literary debut of 1997 - appeared in German 1999 and was well received. It has been repeatedly pointed out that Das Gewissen is, in a certain way, a literary mirror of Jessica Durlacher's relationship with her husband, but much more attention is given to the topic that really defines Durlacher's work: her approach to the events of the Second World War as a representative of the second-generation Holocaust survivors. Jessica Durlacher's father was Gerhard Durlacher (link). Like Leon de Winter's father, he was one of the few members of the family that survived the Holocaust.

In 2016, fitting to the second time Flanders and the Netherlands were guest of honor at the Frankfurt Book Fair, the debut novel of Solomonica de Winter, the daughter of Leon de Winter and Jessica Durlacher, was published by Diogenes. Die Geschichte von Blue, was originally written in English (Over the Rainbow) and translated from English into German and Dutch (Achter de regenboog). With the inclusion of Solominica de Winter's book among the titles of Diogenes, all writing members of the De Winter family are represented there. But not only that, it is uncommon that a German translation of a book by a Dutch writer appears before the book is marketed in Dutch and also that the Frankfurter Allgemeine is quoted on the cover of a book in Holland. Meanwhile, Solomonica de Winter's second book - Das Gesetz der Natur [The Law of Nature], is in preparation. It will also appear with Diogenes in 2022, the same year in which Jessica Durlacher's new "pageturner" (Stoltenberg, 2022) Die Stimme [The Voice] was published.