He was initially counted among the "New Realists" funded by Dieter Wellershoff [de], became the author of socialist, imaginative utopian worlds since the 1970s and took an outsider position in German-language contemporary literature.
He was a writer of poems, short stories, children's books, radio plays and a member of the PEN Center Germany.
He sought employment at the Süddeutscher Rundfunk in Stuttgart and worked for one year on the production of live broadcasts and documentary films.
In 1962 he married actress Ingrid Mannstaedt, with whom he went to Celle in 1963. Letters became his main occupation, and in 1964 his first prose appeared, which was well received by the critics; next to it emerged radio plays and film scripts.
In 1967, the Herburger family moved to Berlin-Friedenau, where the author maintained lively contacts with numerous fellow writers and with the beginning of the student movement.
In 1973 he also founded the first cooperative bookstore in Munich together with Martin Gregor-Dellin, Michael Krüger, Paul Wühr, Christoph Buggert and Tankred Dorst.