The following research promotes a dialogue between Toni Morrison s Compaixão A Mercy and Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie s Americanah in order to reflect on issues related to the modern nation-state and identity evoked by these diasporic narratives. The analysis has focused on the different temporalities between Africa and North America the novels create. The contact between these two sides of the Atlantic Ocean structures a system which involves cultural exchange, global flows of bodies, symbols, commodities, cultural negotiation processes, multiple contacts, weakening or strengthening borders. Considering the Atlantic Ocean as a meeting space for Compaixão A Mercy and Americanah helps us imagine identity beyond the nation-state homogeneity and map multiple identities constructed through compulsory or negotiated interactions, such as the ones provoked by the 17th century-North-American slavery trade and the ones caused by contemporary diasporas. Focusing on the routes rather than cultural roots, the analysis presents diasporic movements as mechanisms capable of shifting identity from national and territorial aspects.