Literary Translingualism in the 21st century: Mobilizing Affect Through Language

This article examines literary translingualism as one of the most dynamic trends on the post-postmodernist literary scene in the twenty-first century. More precisely, it discusses Aleksandar HemonHemon, Aleksandar and Miroslav Penkov—two contemporary American authors of Balkan descent who write in English and publish in the U.S. None of them have been anchored to one specific language, culture, or place: on the contrary, their panoramic translingual imagination spans over continents and centuries, building affective bridges between cultures, places, and languages. By analyzing their recent works, it is argued that literary translingualism not only intensifies transnational and translingual flows in contemporary literature but invigorates literary communication by mobilizing affect through language—in the wake of the emotional detachment of postmodernism, entailing what Fredric Jameson has called “waning of affect.”