There exists a controversy between latinoamericanista discourse that tries to see in the literary works of the continent an essence or common denominator and the current thought on the community that ascertains the impossibility of “previous data” to the community. The idea of national community has different modulations in Fanon, Anderson and Nancy. This essay poses this controversy from the existent relationship between, first, the idea of community in its national modulation and, second, the national idea concerning it´s operative dimension; that is to say, from its production or presentation as a work, using the theses of Anderson in Imagined Communities and Nancy in The Inoperative Community, works that give account of this crash of theoretical positions concerning the community. Our attempt is to suggest the community (national) as a construct which could review its written basements towards a conception of it that exceeds its essentialist limits and consider its radical materiality and historicity.Análisis de la polémica entre un discurso latinoamericanista que intenta ver en las obras literarias del continente una esencia o denominador común y el pensamiento actual sobre la comunidad que constata la imposibilidad de un “dato previo” a la comunidad. La idea de comunidad nacional tiene polémicas posiciones teóricas y diversas modulaciones —sean ellas nacionales u operativas— como en Fanon (1963) Anderson (2007) y Nancy (1999). Se propone aquí pensar la comunidad (nacional) como una construcción que podría revisar sus basamentos escritos en pos de unaconcepción de sí que exceda las limitantes esencialistas y considere su radical materialidad e historicidad.