This article reconsiders the role of nationalist literature in the making of Republican Turkey. In the 1980s and 1990s, Turkey witnessed the rise of identity politics and ideologies with Muslim and Ottomanist-oriented tones. It is often asserted that the major contradiction of identity politics in Turkey is between what can broadly be called the "Turkish-Islamic synthesis" and the radical, modernizing, official Kemalist nationalism. This article questions such a simplistic understanding of Turkish politics by articulating nationalist perspectives which oppose and criticize these two major ideologies. It discusses the work of three well-known nationalist writers, Kemal Tahir, Cemil Meriç and Attila I˙lhan in order to demonstrate the nuances of nationalist thinking and the possibilities that literature provides for extending the existing definitions of national identity in Turkey.