The study focuses on the confusion created by Romain Gary`s (1914-1980) adoption of a pseudonym in the years 1974-1980 and the specific issues for literary studies by the disparate reception accorded to the novels published in that period under the name of Romain Gary and Emile Ajar respectively. Alongside the poetological relationship between the two series of texts, Poier-Bernhard discusses more general theoretical questions such as the constitution of literary irony, the significance of an author's name, pseudonymity and heteronymity. In so doing he draws upon numerous texts from other literatures, thus enriching the study with a comparative dimension. The work also takes up the discussion on autobiography as a genre and attempts to provide a fundamental clarification of the concept serving as a basis for a precise delineation of autobiography as a text variety.