Play: "Les combustibles"

Synopsis of *Les Combustibles* by Amélie Nothomb:

The city is under siege. It is winter. In the university professor’s apartment, where his assistant Daniel and student Marina have taken refuge, there is only one fuel left to keep the fireplace burning: books… Yes, but which books should be sacrificed, and which deserve to be spared? Everyone has asked themselves this question at least once in their life: Which book would you take to a deserted island?

In this closed-door setting, surrounded by bombs and sniper fire, the prolific novelist poses an even more perverse—and yet existential—question to her characters: Which book, which sentence by which author, can provide as much comfort as a life-giving fire that warms the soul? Humor, irony, and despair are subtly interwoven in this parable with singularly contemporary resonance.