Zone autonome. Normatività, anticonformismo, malattia e salute nella trilogia su Stoccolma di Jonas Gardell,

The aim of this article is to study space and place in the literary trilogy by the Swedish author Jonas Gardell Torka aldrig tårar utan handskar (Gardell 2012-3; 2012, ‘Never Wipe Tears Without Gloves’). Set in the cityscape of Stockholm in the early 1980s, the plot revolves around a defining encounter between Benjamin, a Jehovah’s Witness, and Rasmus, a young student hailing from Värmland. The small community they shape with fellow friends/outsiders challenges the visible edgings that normativity has erected. This creates an underworld that can be interpreted as a «temporary autonomous zone» (Bey 1985), or as a «heterotopia» (Foucault 1986) within city borders. Benjamin, Rasmus, and their group are eventually affected when AIDS spreads through the capital city. Illness plays a significant role in the outlining of new boundaries and eventually results in the application of a geographical sanction of segregation that the majority, conformed to normativity, imposes on the minority. The process of segregation is finally overcome with a public act of national contrition, as evidenced by Gardell’s work. The outcome of this process is the achievement of an awareness of the past and a firmer social cohesion.