ABSTRACT
The discussion of Christopher Isherwood's autobiographical writings has shown him to be a subject who primarily wants to get away from himself. In temporal terms, this movement translates into a rejection of the past; with respect to space, it means putting as much distance as possible between himself and England. For Isherwood, the literary text becomes the space in which he effects the gradual effacement of his old self by creating a series of mutations and variations of 'Christopher Isherwood'. The self Isherwood seeks to shed bears the imprint of his upbringing, his family, a specific set of values and code of conduct characteristic of the English upper-middle class. His travels abroad remove him further and further from his place of origin, a spatial distancing that also gradually enables him to voice his own homosexuality and initiate a cautious movement out of the closet.
