Introduction -- Autofiction, disgust, and trauma: negotiating vulnerable subject positions in Charlotte Roche's Schossgebete -- Looking beyond the self-reflecting the other: staring as a narrative device in Kathrin Schmidt's Du stirbst nicht -- Intertextuality and the transnational in Verena Stefan's Fremdschlafer: writing breast cancer from beyond the border -- Confronting cancer publicly: diary writing in extremis by Christoph Schlingensief and Wolfgang Herrndorf -- Conclusion: "und was dann": recent developments and research desiderata