Cirrus@Austlit

'Authors may invent fictional characters from any recess of their unlimited imaginations. They may launch narrators who are grossly at odds with reliability. Outflanking the empirical world, they will be praised for being fascinating and inventive. Indeed, literature has been widely respected and liberally protected for centuries as the area where imaginary voices can be freely raised and disbelief in artificial identities is willingly suspended. However, there is little forgiveness but rather bitter public resentment if an author dares to forge his or her own biographical self. In this respect, fiction has a sensitive edge bordering on scandal.

This book, for the first time, charts the limits of this intriguing and treacherous field of public tolerance. Based on a critical discussion of various concepts of 'identity,' four famous twentieth-century literary scandals are analysed...The result is a lively and detailed account of what happens when an Author Identity Model (AIM) transgresses the unwritten but rigorous laws that govern the construction of a 'real' self.' - back cover