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Literature and the Construction of National Identities
Comparative literature and cross-cultural analysis

Literature and National Identity: Why Books Make Us Who We Are (Or Pretend to Be)

I’m sitting here, staring at a stack of books—some dog-eared, some pristine, all of them screaming about who gets to belong to a country, a culture, a myth. Literature doesn’t just reflect national identity; it’s a hammer and chisel, carving out what we think we are, or what we desperately want to be. And yeah, I’m emotional about it. Books have this sneaky way of making you feel like you’re part of something bigger, even when you’re just a lonely reader in a coffee shop, pretending you’re not eavesdropping on the couple arguing two tables over.

National identity in literature isn’t some abstract academic concept—it’s visceral, messy, and sometimes a total lie. Think about it: every country has its epic, its novel, its poem that’s supposed to sum up “who we are.” But who’s the “we”? And who gets left out? I’m fascinated by how books can both build a nation’s self-image and tear it apart. It’s like they’re whispering, “This is us,” while secretly admitting, “But also, we’re kind of a mess.”

The Stories We Tell Ourselves

Let’s start with the big, obvious stuff. Epic poems like The Iliad or Beowulf—these were the OG nation-builders. They weren’t just stories; they were propaganda, love letters to a shared past that probably never existed. Beowulf is all about a hero who slays monsters to protect a kingdom, but it’s also about creating a sense of “Danishness” or “Englishness” (depending on who’s claiming it). I mean, who doesn’t want a monster-slaying badass as their national mascot? It’s branding, but make it literary.

Fast forward to the 19th century, and novels start doing the heavy lifting. Take Les Misérables. Victor Hugo wasn’t just writing about bread theft and barricades; he was wrestling with what it meant to be French after revolutions and empires and all that chaos. The book’s sprawling cast—Jean Valjean, Cosette, even that annoying Javert—feels like a cross-section of France itself, each character a piece of the national puzzle. Reading it, you can’t help but feel the weight of history, the push and pull of justice, class, and identity. It’s exhausting, but in a way that makes you want to keep going, like binge-watching a show you know is going to wreck you.

But here’s where it gets tricky. National identity in literature isn’t just about pride—it’s about exclusion, too. Hugo’s France is vivid, but it’s also selective. Where are the immigrants? The marginalized? The people who don’t fit the “Frenchness” he’s selling? This is the dark side of literary nation-building: for every “us,” there’s a “them” who gets erased or villainized. And I’m not just talking about old books. Modern literature does this, too, just with better PR.

The Internet Age Messes It All Up

Okay, let’s zoom into now. The internet has changed how we read, how we write, and how we think about identity. National identity used to be this monolithic thing, cemented by books you had to read in school. Now? It’s fragmented, debated, memed. On X, you’ll see people arguing about whether Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie captures the “real” Nigerian experience or the “real” American one—or neither. Spoiler: there’s no answer. Adichie’s novel is a masterclass in showing how identity isn’t just national; it’s global, personal, and constantly shifting. Her protagonist, Ifemelu, moves between Nigeria and the U.S., and every page feels like a gut punch about belonging, race, and the stories we tell to survive.

What I love—okay, maybe “love” is too strong, but I’m obsessed—is how Adichie doesn’t let anyone off the hook. Nigeria isn’t romanticized; America isn’t a dreamland. Both places are flawed, beautiful, and suffocating in their own ways. Reading Americanah, I felt like I was being asked to question every assumption I’ve ever made about what a “nation” even is. Is it a flag? A language? A shared trauma? Or just a story we keep telling until it feels true?

And this is where the internet comes in. Readers on X or Goodreads or wherever aren’t just passively consuming these books—they’re dissecting them, fighting over them, making TikToks about them. A single novel like Americanah can spark a thousand threads about diaspora, colonialism, or even just hair (if you’ve read it, you know). It’s chaotic, but it’s alive. Literature isn’t a museum piece anymore; it’s a conversation, and sometimes a screaming match.

The Flip Side: When Literature Breaks Nations Apart

But let’s not get too starry-eyed. Literature doesn’t always unite people under a cozy national banner. Sometimes it’s a wrecking ball. Take Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children. That book is a love letter to India, sure, but it’s also a middle finger to the idea of a single, tidy Indian identity. Rushdie throws in everything—history, magic, politics, family drama—and what you get is a portrait of a nation that’s too big, too messy, to be contained. Reading it, I felt exhilarated and overwhelmed, like I was trying to hold a hurricane in my hands.

Rushdie’s India isn’t just diverse; it’s fractured. The protagonist, Saleem Sinai, is literally falling apart by the end, his body a metaphor for a country that can’t agree on what it is. And isn’t that the truth about national identity? It’s not a monolith; it’s a tug-of-war. Literature like this doesn’t just reflect that—it amplifies it, forces you to confront the cracks.

I’m thinking about how this plays out globally. In Ireland, you’ve got James Joyce’s Ulysses, which is both a celebration of Irishness and a giant “screw you” to the idea of a simple national narrative. Joyce was writing from exile, and you can feel his longing, his bitterness, his refusal to let Ireland be reduced to shamrocks and stout. It’s messy, dense, and honestly kind of infuriating to read, but that’s the point. National identity isn’t supposed to be easy.

Why This Matters (Or Does It?)

I keep circling back to why I care so much about this. Maybe it’s because I’m a sucker for stories that make me feel like I belong somewhere, even if it’s just inside the pages of a book. Or maybe it’s because I’m suspicious of any story that claims to speak for a whole nation. Probably both. Literature has this power to make you feel seen, but it can also make you feel invisible if your version of “national identity” isn’t the one being celebrated.

Right now, as I’m typing this, I’m thinking about how books are still shaping nations, even in 2025. Look at something like Pachinko by Min Jin Lee. It’s about Korean immigrants in Japan, and it’s not just a family saga—it’s a brutal, beautiful interrogation of what it means to belong to a country that doesn’t want you. Reading it, I was gutted. The characters’ struggles to carve out a place for themselves felt so real, so urgent. And it’s not just a “Korean” or “Japanese” story—it’s a human one, which is why it resonates across borders.

But here’s the thing: books like Pachinko don’t just reflect national identity; they challenge it. They force us to ask who gets to tell the story of a nation and who gets silenced. And in an age where everyone’s got a platform—X, Substack, whatever—that question is louder than ever. Readers aren’t just accepting the canon anymore; they’re rewriting it, demanding stories that reflect the world as it actually is, not as some 19th-century novelist imagined it.

Where Do We Go From Here?

I don’t have a neat ending for this. National identity in literature is a paradox—it builds us up, tears us down, and leaves us scrambling to figure out who we are. Books like Americanah, Midnight’s Children, or Pachinko don’t give answers; they give questions, and I’m okay with that. Actually, I’m more than okay—I’m obsessed. These stories remind me that nations aren’t just lines on a map; they’re stories we tell, stories we fight over, stories we rewrite.

So yeah, I’m sitting here, surrounded by books, feeling a little overwhelmed but mostly alive. Literature doesn’t just construct national identity—it constructs us, too. And if that’s not worth getting emotional about, I don’t know what is.