"While literary studies in the postwar era have varied widely in emphasis and approach, they have consistently barred arguments attributing specific intentions to authors based on textual evidence or ascribing textual presences to the authors themselves. Obscure Invitations argues that this taboo has blinded us to many fundamental elements of twentieth-century literature. Widiss focuses on the particularly self-conscious constructions of authorship that characterize both modernist and postmodernist writing, elaborating the narrative strategies they demand and the reading practices they yield. He reveals that apparent manifestations of "the death of the Author" and of the "free play" of language are in fact carefully staged performances that ultimately affirm authorial vitality and control--of both text and reader."--Page 4 of cover.