The book by one of the most famous contemporary French philosophers, Julia Kristeva, “Forces of Horror: An Essay on Abjection” (1982) is dedicated to the themes of material semiotics, motherhood and love, which occupy a key place in her work and have had an exceptional influence on the development of feminist theory and philosophy. The book, based on the work of F. Selin, analyzes how the eradication of the base, dirty, disgusting is a necessary condition for the formation of human subjectivity and sociality, and how, at the same time, their final elimination turns out to be impossible. The book is intended for specialists - philosophers, philologists , culturologists, and for a wide readership.