The Real Hospital, The Imaginary Hospice. On Maria Gerhardt’s Der bor Hollywoodstjerner på vejen (2014) and Transfervindue (2017)

The article explores the issue of the places of illness in Maria Gerhardt’s two works Der bor Hollywoodstjerner på vejen (2014) and Transfervindue (2017). Through these works, the Danish author shares her personal story of struggling with breast cancer, offering a unique perspective as a cancer patient. The present article focuses on two such places in Gerhardt’s narratives: the hospital, a real setting, and the hospice, a fictional one. Drawing on the concepts of Marc Augé’s non-places and Michel Foucault’s heterotopias/utopias, the article examines these places. Specifically, it investigates whether the two places in question may be perceived as non-places and heterotopias, and how they may contribute to the protagonist’s alienation and exclusion from the society of the healthy (i.e., the norm).