Thursday noon of this week, twelve o'clock, the Zimbabwean author Tsitsi Dangarembga made it through passport control at Harare airport and checked in for her flight to Europe.
That's why Dangarembga's German publisher, Annette Michael, is a little more relaxed: But she says on the phone, she won't be able to take a deep breath until the plane is actually in the air.
And with Tsitsi Dangarembga on board.
Tobias Ruether
Editor in the feuilleton of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper in Berlin.
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The journey for the author is to go via Johannesburg first to Oslo and on Monday to Berlin, where Dangarembga will meet her husband and one of their daughters and will be accommodated in the Literary Colloquium.
Her husband, the film producer Olaf Koschke, confirmed a little later via Whatsapp from Harare that his wife actually left.
She is in good spirits, he writes, also thanks to the solidarity shown so far.
But the stress is great and the uncertainty remains as to how things will continue.
Because Tsitsi Dangarembga, internationally acclaimed author and last year's Peace Prize winner of the German book trade, is on trial in her home country of Zimbabwe.
She is accused of inciting violence, disturbing the peace and bigotry: On July 31, 2020, Dangarembga was arrested at a demonstration in Harare along with activist Julie Barnes.
The two had joined a larger protest in the capital, which was primarily intended to protest against the devastating corona policy of authoritarian President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
On their posters, Dangarembga and Barnes had called for institutional reforms, the release of jailed journalists - and simply called for "a better Zimbabwe".
At the time, the police tried to cordon off a large area of the city and arrested others who had come to demonstrate. Zimbabwe has been in a permanent political and economic crisis for decades.
Photos show Dangarembga and Barnes being loaded onto a police van.
Three days earlier, Dangarembga's novel This Mournable Body had been nominated for the Booker Prize.
Their autobiographically colored stories tell of the everyday struggles of female characters in Zimbabwe, of staying, biting through and leaving - and are school reading.
Dangarembga is a literary star in her home country.
Since July 31, 2020, the author has had to report to the police regularly.
Dangarembga also had to give up her passport, but got it back in December 2021 thanks to the efforts of her lawyer Christopher Mhike.
In similar cases, Mhike represents defendants who publicly protest or report on abuses in Zimbabwe and who are brought to trial on flimsy grounds.
The one against Dangarembga and Barnes had been adjourned for almost two years - until it finally started in early June.
Evidence tampered with, witnesses buckling
Since then, three days of trial have followed, during which the public prosecutor's office presented manipulated evidence and witnesses for the prosecution even confirmed this manipulation.
One of the police officers who arrested Dangarembga and Barnes at the time cross-examined himself with lawyer Mhike and stated that, as far as he could remember, nothing on the two women's posters was obscene or incited violence.
The inspector went on to say that the two women had been peaceful and had not incited anyone else - and that there was nothing illegal about advocating for a better society or freedom of the press.