In the turmoil of independence from colonial rule, the Algerian, Kateb Yacine, and the Martinican, Aimé Césaire, who were to become two of the major writers of post-World War Two Francophone literature, chose to write tragedies. Prior to this, the use of a tragic genre was the exclusive prerogative of European playwrights, thus this aesthetic gesture was completely new in the context of Francophone writing. As these authors were renowned for their commitment to political emancipation, the provocative nature of the choice to write a tragedy invites analysis. Kateb and Césaire were not the only Francophone playwrights to make this original gesture: the Algerian writer of French origin Jean Sénac wrote three tragedies without publishing them, and so also did Bernard Dadié from the Ivory Coast, who entitled one of his plays ‘tragedy’ in 1970. Consequently, the tragic genre reappeared between the 1950s and the early 1970s, on the territory of the former French colonies, during a time of transition, of catastrophes and hopes, and did not emerge from any collective decision. This trend produced several masterpieces: Et les chiens se taisaient and La Tragédie du roi Christophe by Césaire and Le Cercle des représailles, a tetralogy by Kateb. These strange literary objects, somewhat neglected by postcolonial criticism, deserve to be reconsidered today given the literary reputations of their authors.