Borges’s idea was to pretend that the book he wanted to write had already been written—written by someone else, some imaginary unknown author, working in a different language, a different culture—and then to describe, summarize, and review that imaginary book. According to an anecdote that’s now part of Borges lore, when the first extraordinary story written along these lines, “El acercamiento a Almotásim” (“The Approach to Al-Mu’tasim”), appeared in the journal Sur in 1940, it was indeed believed to be a review of a book by an Indian author. Similarly it has become obligatory among Borges
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