After her extensive journey to Afghanistan, which she undertook with Ella Maillart, and her disastrous stay in the USA, Annemarie Schwarzenbach traveled to Belgian and French Congo in 1941 to connect with the operations of France libre. Restricted by political suspicions in her scope of action, she began writing 'The Miracle of the Tree.' The novel tells the story of Marc, a Swiss man who comes into conflict with the colonial authorities in the Congo during World War II, is temporarily interned, and eventually released.

The interest in this encoded and perplexing text lies in an inner process that the protagonist undergoes under duress, which refers in a complex way to the contexts of that time. It is an Africa novel that, as clarified in the editor's afterword, ultimately is not one. It is also a novel about World War II, set far from the battlefields, and finally, it is a novel of apocalypse and utopia. The first edition of this novel, which would remain her last major work, thus opens new perspectives on the work of Annemarie Schwarzenbach.