Stiller

Stiller follows a man who returns to Switzerland after years living in America under the assumed identity of Jim White. Upon arrival, he is arrested and repeatedly insists he is not the missing Swiss sculptor named Anatol Stiller whom everyone believes him to be, leading to a prolonged confrontation with his former life, his wife, and his past.

Jim White is the assumed American identity that the protagonist adopts to escape his former life as the Swiss sculptor Anatol Stiller. The tension between the Jim White persona and the Stiller identity forms the central conflict of the novel, as the narrator desperately maintains he is a different person.

Stiller interrogates the impossibility of truly reinventing oneself, the burden of self-deception, and how others' perceptions shape and trap our sense of who we are. Frisch suggests that the past is inescapable, and that denying one's identity is itself a form of dishonesty that ultimately fails.

Yes, I'm Not Stiller is the English translation title of the same 1954 novel by Max Frisch. The title reflects the protagonist's repeated insistence to the authorities and those around him that he is not the man they claim he is.