This comparative study examines the prose writings of the bestknown cosmopolitan authors of the Third French Republic the modernists Jean Giraudoux Valery Larbaud and Paul Morand and the bestselling popular writer Maurice Dekobra. It investigates what constituted the cosmopolitanism that they publicly proclaimed between the World Wars a classification which has been widely accepted by commentators ever since. In particular it considers whether conventional definitions of cosmopolitanism as an unproblematic attitude of xenophilia coupled with wanderlust or as an ecumenical humanism can coexist with the blind spots and prejudices of its practitioners. This book offers a comprehensive reinterpretation of the writers identity politics based on their approach to Otherness gender race nationality political affiliation as well as to formal innovation. It argues that cosmopolitanism is the organizing principle for their literary and existential attempts at cultivating authentic Selfhood. Through its sociopolitical embeddedness this cosmopolitanism reveals the ideological and cultural preoccupations of the day.