Collection of sketches by Jean-Pierre Martinez
Memoirs of a Suitcase is a collection of fifteen short sketches, each built around a simple situation — often absurd — and almost always triggered by the presence of a suitcase. Sometimes full, sometimes empty, sometimes abandoned or purely symbolic, the suitcase becomes the common thread running through the collection, travelling across places, genres, and registers.
Each sketch features two characters, often unnamed, caught in a moment of transition, waiting, farewell, or existential drift. Whether it’s a holiday departure, a release from prison, an assisted suicide, or a hearse rental, the suitcase stands for what we keep, what we carry with us, and what we leave behind.
The tone shifts between absurdist comedy, dark humour, poetic tenderness, metaphysical parody, and gentle critique of the modern world. Together, they form a gallery of micro-fictions — at once self-contained and deeply interconnected — united by the same universe: that of a fragile, clear-sighted, and often funny humanity in the face of everyday absurdity.
List of sketches
- Lack of Audience
- The contract
- On the Grass
- Excess Baggage
- Ice cream
- Desperate
- Seventh Heaven
- The Spitting Image of His Son
- Last journey
- Release
All the texts available on this site can be downloaded for free. However, performance rights, which constitute fair compensation for the author’s work, are a legal obligation. Whether you are an amateur or a professional, you must request authorization to perform the play and pay the corresponding royalties for the production. To get in touch with Jean-Pierre Martinez and ask an authorization to represent one of his works: Contact form.
Download the entire collection free of charge (PDF)
