In their individual categories and entities, both American and Bosnian and Herzegovinian literatures are more transnational in the 21st century than ever before in the history of the literature of both countries, or even in the history of world literature. The transnationality of both has been manifested in many ways through the history of the world as seen as an open space for mobility in both literatures, being in many respects opposed to the closed spaces of the “imagined communities” of the nation-states these literatures “belong to” in the national context. In addition, transnational American and Bosnian-Herzegovinian literature has been created on both sides as a joined and mutual, permuting and open space/category in both literatures. Hence, there are individual systems and spaces of Transnational American Literature(s) and Transnational Bosnian and Herzegovinian Literature(s), and there is a mutual category and a joined entity of Transnational American and Bosnian and Herzegovinian Literature(s) as part of the generic system of both trans/national works of literature. The special aim of the article is to contribute to the field of the study of Contemporary Transnational American, Bosnian-Herzegovinian, and American-Bosnian-Herzegovinian works of literature, emphasizing how the identities of authors and/or their books and then their modes of mobility, can defamiliarize and resist conventions and canon of “imagined communities”. In that context, the article also aims to benefit contemporary trans/national literary and cultural studies in their specificity and uniqueness in the United States and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Broader the world, examining the processes through which American and Bosnian-Herzegovinian literature become members of the “World Republic of Letters” and how this process is experienced and vice versa

This article analyzes the remaking of American literature and its identity, focusing transnational American literature in general and, in particular, the contemporary American novel. It discusses a sense of postnational and anational motion of/in U.S. fiction, with an emphasis on the 21st - century American novel, created by both American and non-American authors and observed from a perspective of both American and non-American Americanists. Aimed at exploring literature in motion across “imagined” borders, the article also discusses the synergies between literature and other arts and disciplines in contemporary American literatures in order to provide new insights into literature in general and American literatures in particular. In the dialogue of literature with other disciplines, it examines the synergies between the local, regional, national, and global in contemporary U.S. fiction, as well as the synergies between different discourses of contemporaneity. Moving beyond established models in the way that even the term “transnational” transcends its own definition, the aim is to newly theorize a transnational/post-national/anational as well as transtextual motion of/in American fiction toward new directions of both American and non-American creation of American literatures.

The paper discusses Sherman Alexie's 2007 novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian within the context of the (de)construction of identity and Otherness of a “new” American Indian in the contemporary world. Through analysis of the American Indian identity and the facets which characterize “Indianness” in Alexie’s Diary, the paper explores a new Indian reality that resists boundaries and singularity in many ways. A great part of that identity is created and presented through Junior and/or Arnold’s language. Abundant with slang terms, occasionally sexually explicit, offensive and racist comments or views packed with metaphorical expressions and underlined with humor and irony, such language contributes significantly to the creation of double identity or multiple identities of a young person. Additionally, there are cartoons, used as a special medium to bridge the gap between the words and the reader offering at the same time a humorous insight into the experience of life. The aim of the paper is to focus on the contrasting identities of the Indian and the White cultures, races and spaces as well as on a concept of a new consciousness about Indian identity and co-existence in the world that is yet to be discovered for Alexie’s post-nomadic Indian. It will also show that the creation of identity of a young person is a multilevel process of growing up and maturity reflected in social, cultural, linguistic and many other dimensions. Keywords: Otherness, “Indianness”, “a part time Indian”, a post-Indian identity, language, slang, humor, cartoons.