The aim of this literary study is to examine whether the cultural contact in Nathacha Appanah’s novel Tropic of Violence (2016), which tells the story of a young boy on the French island of Mayotte, reveals a form of “hybridity” or rather displays separated cultures that are different from each other. To achieve this, we will draw upon Homi K. Bhabha’s theory of “the third space,” Édouard Glissant’s theory of “creolisation,” and Léonora Miano’s theory of the “Afropean,” all of which together contribute to a broader perspective on the notion of hybridity. We will analyze how the novel’s narrative structure presents the interaction between cultural perspectives, as well as how the characters are positioned in relation to cultural groups. The results of our study reveal a tension between hybridity and a reality where cultures remain separated — a tension that can, in fact, be interpreted as part of an ongoing process of hybridization.