Ethvert byggeri er et udsagn om samfundets aktuelle tilstand. Jorden under Høje Gladsaxe i den danske ghettos litteraturhistorie

Abstract

This article makes a literary analysis of the novel Jorden under Høje Gladsaxe (2002) by Camilla Christensen as part of ‘a literary history of the Danish ghetto’ – literary works that depict Danish deprived housing areas and their development, changing valorisations and forms of life. The article argues that Jorden under Høje Gladsaxe offers a wide historical, societal and national perspective on the socio-geographical marginalisation of the housing areas. The novel links housing policy and architecture to the non-place – in line with Marc Augés well-known concept – that Høje Gladsaxe appears as in 2001. The novel also links the degrading treatment of unemployed and precarious persons in the late-modern welfare state to the maintenance of Høje Gladsaxe as a non-place. Furthermore, the article argues that the magical realism, gallery of characters and use of legend material makes the novel a literary voice that opposes wide-spread prejudice against inhabitants of the housing areas, as well as a predominant social realist way of writing about them. Finally, the novel is connected to two main tendencies in the literary history of the Danish ghetto: the ‘expert narrative’ and ‘autotopography.’