grew out of violence to their internaldifferences, mainly for the sake of resource exploitation, on the backs ofexploited, cheap or slave labor. Thereality of violence as foundational to the nation-state, throughout the historyof European domination, persisted in the world and lives until our days. The modern nation-state is a direct result ofcolonization. As such, it is needless tosay that it reproduces forms of colonialism in the world. Although what we could call postcolonialstudies literature focuses on too many topics, due primarily to itsoverarching social analysis, ranging from forms of representation of Others toforms of resistance, nationalism, race, gender, education, and many other formsof social relations, I will deal more broadly with how the concepts of hybridity(Bhabha), and of nationalism and anti-nationalism (Cesaire, 1955, as well asFanon, 2005; Anderson 1995), apply to a partial understanding of the works ofAchebe (1959) and Ngugi (1964). It is myattempt here to demonstrate that works of fiction can be both nationalist andanti-nationalist at the same time, and that this contradiction is inherent inthe question of hybridity (Bhabha), or the differance (Derrida), ofcolonial discourses. We will reflecthere upon the question: Can the national be anti-national in postcolonialstudies? Nationalism,in the context of European colonialism, needs to be understood as a form ofliberation movement, with all its multiplicities of interpretation involved,but also as a result of colonialism. When reading African novels of the 20th century, as we did inclass, one gets a sense of the reality of an every-day struggle for liberationof the Africans portrayed in the story, but the complexity of power relationsis also very present. It in a way respondsto Europe's lack of the stories of the colonized, in literature, which is suchan important part of European cultural production and in this sense, bearingour need of understanding of European literature as itself multiple. With the birth of postcolonial literature, anew rethinking of forms of nationalism has been done, which includes theprocess of colonization-decolonization and the multiplicity of activitiesinvolved, but also, in a very practical sense, the question of the forms ofproduction of nationalisms within anti-colonial struggle. It is very important to note, as the authorswe will discuss here are ware, how the colonial experience is itself alreadymultiple as well. Nonetheless, inbetween the forces of colonization, emerged discourses trying to understand it,and through this understanding, hopefully shape the ongoing processes ofdecolonization in Africa and the African diaspora. Bhabhaand Anderson discuss how the nation is a cultural and linguistic construction,besides the obvious mandate of the State to define many of its contours andlimits. Limits was indeed a centralreference in colonial discourse, that postcolonial literature, and politicalforms of resistance allied with them, also took as their central concern.However, the contours of the national, as postcolonial authors demonstrate, isfraught with uncertainties, unequal exchanges, power differentials, andsignifiers that mean very different things to different people, particularlywithin differences of culture, history, and social relations. Subjects are not easily subjected todifferent nationalist claims. The veryidea of a nation, or nation-ness (Anderson), was introduced through violence,extermination, exploitation, if we are to think that the language and thepractice have any relationship. Theintroduction of nation-ness to former and