ABSTRACT
The chapter explores organ transplantation using literary and philosophical sources. It opens with Hans Christian Andersen’s short story “The Shadow” and asks whether the shadow can be understood to be both illness and life after transplantation. Illness casts a shadow on the ill person’s life, but organ transplantation does not cure the illness. It offers a different kind of shadow under which the ill person may continue to live. This ambivalence is explored. The chapter then turns to Jean-Luc Nancy’s short text “The Intruder”, which describes Nancy’s experience of having a heart transplant, an experience of intrusion. The relationship between the shadow and the intruder is probed. The answer offered in the chapter is that illness and transplantation are both what philosopher L. A. Paul calls a “transformative experience” – an experience that changes you both in terms of your knowledge and in terms of your goals and preferences.
