This article analyzes the novels O mar nunca transborda, by Ana Maria Machado, and El mar que nos trajo, by Griselda Gambaro, within a comparative frame, in order to exam the representation of national identity and self-identity through the intersection of history, fiction and memory. The two novels offer an alternative perspective of nation that privileges the micro histories of groups or individuals at the margins of the official historiography, and emphasizes the "ambivalence" of the concept of the nation (according to Homi Bhabha), as opposed to a hegemonic idea of nation that defines it as a unified entity.
history; memory; nation; national identity