Monsters are among us, monsters are attacking: this is monstrous! The evocation of the figure of the monster is spontaneously associated with a reaction of repulsion and distancing from oneself or from the collective in which the individual recognizes themselves. This means that it is based on a difference that both provokes the gaze and upsets the norm. By exposing themselves in this way, the texts of the corpus: Bintou, La mélancolie des barbares, Nema, l’exilé, Les Travaux d’Ariane et Le Corps liquide, draw the attention of the reader whose comfort they heckle and this could be qualified as “monstrous”. Therefore, this situation begs the question why African writers are fascinated by beings that generate fear? To this major question are added the following: what are those monsters of society painted by African authors? What do they tell us about the society? And how?
Based on the principles of character semiotics, this research aims to show that fascinating monsters give rise to a subversive aesthetic, in search of creative freedom. This writing of transgression makes it possible to describe the excesses of contemporary society.
Keywords: freak, fear, semiotic, subversion, derivate, contemporaneity
