Diagnosis is Jostein Gaarder's first book and his only collection of stories. In it we will find themes that concern the very existence or the mystery of life and that took center stage later in The World of Sofia and in subsequent books. In the beautiful story that gives the book its name, the author describes the reflections on life of a young person who has just learned that he suffers from a fatal disease. But above the tragic is the author's genuine amazement at all aspects of our existence, at this world that we have before our eyes without us knowing how to appreciate its mystery. There is also no lack of humor in these stories, as in the funny "Tos dangerous ”, or science fiction in“ The Time Scanner ”, which now, twenty years after being written, is almost prophetic.