Is a Man with a Transplanted Heart a New Man? On the Metamorphosis of the Motif of Organ Transplantation in Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Prose Although by the second half of the twentieth century organ transplantation had become a standard medical procedure, in late-twentieth- and early twenty-first century films and literature it is still closely aligned with anti-utopias and fantasy, demanding sym- bolic interpretation. Organ transplantation per se is never really the subject of a given work; it is a metaphor and pretext for philosophical considerations. Maylis de Kerangal’s novel Réparer les vivants (Mend the Living) published in France in 2013, proposes a new approach to the transplantation motif which focuses on the process of the biological mod- ification itself, without invoking traditional ethical dilemmas, and recognizes the biologi- cal survival of the body as the highest good. The book may be an indication that a shift in the ethical paradigm is taking place, but its consequences are not fully recognized.