About the work
Les Combustibles (English: Human Rites) is a play for three characters by the Belgian writer Amélie Nothomb, published in 1994. No exact premiere date for a spoken stage production is documented; recorded stagings include one at the Théâtre du Trident in Québec in 2006 and one at the Théâtre Daniel Sorano in Vincennes in 2008. In 1997 Daniel Schell set the material as an opera, which premiered at the XXe Théâtre in Paris.
Plot
During an unnamed war, the Professor, his assistant Daniel and Daniel's lover Marina have barricaded themselves in the Professor's freezing apartment and already burned all the furniture to keep warm. When the firewood runs out too, Marina proposes burning the books of the vast library instead, raising the question of which book may be sacrificed and which must be spared. In the end the Professor burns the last remaining book, whereupon Marina, as she had threatened, walks out to be shot by the besiegers.
Cultural significance
The chamber play has been read as an allegory of the value of literature and literary criticism; it has been translated into English and Italian, among other languages, and staged at various theatres.