Tierno Monénembo is an author who regularly deals with chaos, the absurd and madness in his literary production. His first nine novels deal with madness either by modeling it around a character or by designing a literary feature that creates a carnivalesque, burlesque and eccentric universe. The nodal point of my argument is to analyze this motif, its motivations and the stakes it involves. Building on the typology of the madman in literature, focusing primarily on what that mad character says and does, and considering the place of these words and actions in the novel and their impact on its textual economy, I will argue that the receivability and relevance of this literary discourse can be read in the light of Bakhtin’s deconstruction or crowing / uncrowning. In sum, T. Monénembo’s writing about madness and the madness of his writing are not just a distinguishing feature of his novel. Indeed, he aesthetizes madness in order to question the African postcolonial state and the traumatized individual that stem from it.