It's Sunday morning and Tsitsi Dangarembga and Karl Ove Knausgård are hiking through the forest with almost four hundred other people: the Nordmarka – a popular area on the outskirts of Oslo.

Most of those who walk through the Nordmarka with the world-famous author Dangarembga, who is currently on trial in her native Zimbabwe, and with the Norwegian star author, wear outdoor clothing.

Shortly before the finish, volunteers offer them coffee and pastries.

And then the destination can already be seen: the Future Library.

"A forest / of unread books / growing for a century": At first, Scottish artist Katie Paterson's idea of ​​a forest of unread books growing for a century was just a mental exercise.

But the nature-loving Norwegians believed in it, and so in 2014 a thousand seedlings were planted in this forest near Oslo.

Every year since then, the artist, together with the Future Library Trust, has invited a writer to write a work that will remain unpublished until the year 2114.

World-class literature meets esotericism

Canadian Margaret Atwood was the first to present her manuscript, followed later by British-Turkish colleague Elif Şafak and South Korean writer Han Kang.

Then came the pandemic.

And now the Norwegian Karl Ove Knausgård is happy to finally be able to hand over his secret work after a three-year break.

In the library of the future, world-class literature meets esotericism.

Tsitsi Dangarembga's journey to Oslo was still uncertain before departure in Harare: In her novels, the award-winning writer and filmmaker, who also received the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade in 2021, repeatedly tells of the everyday struggle in her homeland - against discrimination and persecution.

And she is active beyond the books, protesting against the corrupt regime that suppresses freedom of expression. Zimbabwe has been stuck in a permanent crisis for decades.

After a demonstration in July 2020, Dangarembga was arrested on flimsy grounds, later charged, and she is currently on trial.

The verdict is to be passed on June 27th.

Anything is possible, from acquittal to several years in prison.

There is a method to this unpredictability, too; criticism should be decomposed by arbitrariness.

On this morning, however, the 63-year-old author is sitting in a peaceful idyll on a wooden bench between Knausgård and the artist Paterson.

Dangarembga looks up the slope where visitors squat on the ground among the seedlings marked with red bows.

A few spruce trees have grown into a meter high sapling and, as the forester explains at the handover ceremony, have taken root.

In 2114, the paper on which the anthology of books will be printed is to be made from the wood of the mature trees.

“This project makes the future present for us and present for us in the future,” says Knausgård as he hands Paterson his secret work.

The only thing he is allowed to reveal is the title: "Blindeboka", "The blind book".

A short time later, Dangarembga steps in front of the microphone, holding a mint-green box with the manuscript in her hands.

The title is: "Narini and Her Donkey".

"Narini is a female name and it means infinity," she says.

The name fits well, but this is a coincidence.

Think differently about the present

At the end of the ceremony, the author stands in the forest for a while while the visitors disappear into the vastness of Nordmarka.

Birds are chirping, the sun is shining.

"I feel renewed and refreshed," she says.

For Dangarembga, the future library is one of the most important projects she has ever participated in.

Also because it offers her another platform to draw attention to the situation in her home country.

“What excites me is how the Future Library is making us think differently about our present today, and how that present is leading us into our future.”