This book embarks on a journey through modern Greek prose texts of the 19th and 20th centuries to primarily explore the relationship between disguise and identity.
How do the multiple role switches, the donning of different personas approach the "other," aid in self-awareness, and reveal unknown or latent facets of identity? Under what terms does the dialogue between the self and the disguised "other" take place?
For what reasons is disguise attempted, and what functions is it called to fulfill? How is the "new" image accepted not only by the self but also by others and by the narrator?
Furthermore, does disguise and, more specifically, cross-dressing undermine stereotypical male and female behaviors, or does it re-inscribe the bipolarity, the "truth" of masculinity and femininity?
These and many other questions are what the approaches to the texts attempt to answer, simultaneously revealing the variations and evolution of disguise in its historical journey from a simple device for advancing the plot to a structural element of the narrative itself.
[Excerpt from the text on the back cover of the edition]
