Solvej Balle

Tara Setler has slipped out of time. Every morning, she wakes up on the 18th November, and she no longer remembers the 17th as if it were yesterday…
Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2025

On The Calculation of Volume I

Barbara Haveland

Utterly riveting, Solvej Balle’s On the Calculation of Volume (Book I) is the grand opening of her speculative fiction septology, winner of the 2022 Nordic Council Literature Prize (Scandinavia’s most important literary award) for being “a masterpiece of its time.” 

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR TRANSLATED LITERATURE

Tara Selter, the heroine of On the Calculation of Volume, has involuntarily stepped off the train of time: in her world, November eighteenth repeats itself endlessly. We meet Tara on her 122nd November 18th: she no longer experiences the changes of days, weeks, months, or seasons. She finds herself in a lonely new reality without being able to explain why: how is it that she wakes every morning into the same day, knowing to the exact second when the blackbird will burst into song and when the rain will begin? Will she ever be able to share her new life with her beloved and now chronically befuddled husband? And on top of her profound isolation and confusion, Tara takes in with pain how slight a difference she makes in the world. (As she puts it: “That’s how little the activities of one person matter on the eighteenth of November.”)

Balle is hypnotic and masterful in her remixing of the endless recursive day, creating curious little folds of time and foreshadowings: her flashbacks light up inside the text like old flash bulbs.

The first volume’s gravitational pull―a force inverse to its constriction―has the effect of a strong tranquilizer, but a drug under which your powers of observation only grow sharper and more acute. Give in to the book's logic (its minute movements, its thrilling shifts, its slant wit, its slowing of time) and its spell is utterly intoxicating.

Solvej Balle’s seven-volume novel wrings enthralling and magical new dimensions from time and its hapless, mortal subjects.  As one Danish reviewer beautifully put it, Balle’s fiction consists of writing that listens. “Reading her is like being caressed by language itself.”

On the Calculation of Volume (Book I)

Utterly riveting, Solvej Balle’s On the Calculation of Volume (Book I) is the grand opening of her speculative fiction septology, winner of the 2022 Nordic Council Literature Prize (Scandinavia’s most important literary award) for being “a masterpiece of its time.” A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF 2024 A WASHINGTON POST NOTABLE BOOK OF 2024 SHORTLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR TRANSLATED LITERATURE Tara Selter, the heroine of On the Calculation of Volume, has involuntarily stepped off the train of time: in her world, November eighteenth repeats itself endlessly. We meet Tara on her 122nd November 18th: she no longer experiences the changes of days, weeks, months, or seasons. She finds herself in a lonely new reality without being able to explain why: how is it that she wakes every morning into the same day, knowing to the exact second when the blackbird will burst into song and when the rain will begin? Will she ever be able to share her new life with her beloved and now chronically befuddled husband? And on top of her profound isolation and confusion, Tara takes in with pain how slight a difference she makes in the world. (As she puts it: “That’s how little the activities of one person matter on the eighteenth of November.”) Balle is hypnotic and masterful in her remixing of the endless recursive day, creating curious little folds of time and foreshadowings: her flashbacks light up inside the text like old flash bulbs. The first volume’s gravitational pull—a force inverse to its constriction—has the effect of a strong tranquilizer, but a drug under which your powers of observation only grow sharper and more acute. Give in to the book's logic (its minute movements, its thrilling shifts, its slant wit, its slowing of time) and its spell is utterly intoxicating. Solvej Balle’s seven-volume novel wrings enthralling and magical new dimensions from time and its hapless, mortal subjects. As one Danish reviewer beautifully put it, Balle’s fiction consists of writing that listens. “Reading her is like being caressed by language itself.”

On the Calculation of Volume (Book I): Shortlisted for the 2025 International Booker Prize

Bind 1

Om udregning af rumfang

Tara Selter’s epic journey through November 18th continues in Book II of the masterly On the Calculation of Volume from one of Scandinavia’s most beloved writers. A WASHINGTON POST NOTABLE BOOK OF 2024 The first year of November eighteenth is coming to a close, and Tara Selter has returned to her hotel room in Paris, the place where it all began. As if perched at the edge of a precipice, she readies herself to leap into November nineteenth. Book II of Solvej Balle’s astounding seven-part series On the Calculation of Volume beautifully expands on the speculative premise of Book I, drawing us further into the maze of time, where space yawns open, as if suddenly gaining a new dimension, extending into ever more fined-grained textures. Within this new reality, our senses and the tactility of things grows heightened: sounds, smells, sights, objects come suddenly alive, as if the world had begun whispering to us in a new language. And yet as the world announces itself anew, Tara’s own sense of self is eroding, making her wonder just which bits of her are really left intact? “It is the Tara Selter with hopes and dreams who has fallen out of the picture, been thrown off the world, run over the edge, been poured out, carried off down the stream of eighteenths of November, lost, evaporated, swept out to sea.” She begins to think of herself as a relic of the past, as something or someone leftover, similar to the little Roman coin she carries around in her pocket, without a purpose or a place. Desperate to recover a sense of herself within time, Tara decides to head north by train in search of winter, but soon she turns south in pursuit of spring, as she tries to grasp on to durational time through seasonal variations. Amazingly, On the Calculation of Volume Book II is all movement and motion—taking us through the European countries of the North and the South, through seasons, and languages—a beautiful travelogue that is also a love letter to our vanishing world. To be continued.

On the Calculation of Volume (Book II)

A year has passed, but Tara is still frozen in time. Every day she wakes up to repeat the same day. But when she boards a train, she finds herself in a new day

On the Calculation of Volume II

Leyla Tamer(Çevirmen)

Tara Selter gizemli bir şekilde zamanın dışına savruldu...
Artık her sabah aynı güne; on sekiz kasıma uyanıyor. On dokuz kasıma uyanma umudunu yitirirken on yedi kasımı da dün gibi hatırlamaktan gitgide uzaklaşıyor. Artık uyandığı günü avucunun içi gibi biliyor: Yağmur ne zaman bastıracak, güneş ne zaman açacak, bahçe çiti boyunca yürüyen komşu köşeyi ne an dönecek, kocası elinde torbalarla kapıdan ne zaman girecek...
Fakat zaman akarken içine düştüğü bu uçurumda yapayalnız. Etrafındaki herkes -çok sevdiği kocası dahil- bugünü ilk ve son kez yaşıyor. Kimse yaşadığı farklı on sekiz kasımları hatırlamıyor ve anlattığında ona inanmakta zorlanıyorlar. Tara 365. on sekiz kasımına yaklaşırken çaresizce, bu hapishaneden kurtulmanın yollarını arıyor.
Solvej Balle, Uluslararası Booker Ödülü finalistleri arasında yer alan, dünyada kapladığımız yer üzerine felsefi bir soruşturma niteliğindeki romanının ilk cildiyle zamana ve onun talihsiz tutsaklarının başına gelenlere dair büyülü ve heyecan verici bir hikâye dokuyor.
“En iyi romanlar alan açanlardır. Solvej Balle zaman içinde bir alan açtı ve bu kesinlikle, kesinlikle muhteşem. Olağanüstü bir kitap.” –Karl Ove Knausgaard
“Solvej Balle en incelikli, en etkileyici detayları mucizevi bir biçimde tekrarda bulan muazzam bir yazar. Hacim Hesabı Üzerine şimdiye kadar okuduklarınıza benzemeyen, bambaşka bir kitap.” –Hernan Diaz
“Dil, insan ilişkileri ve zaman üzerine sorular eşliğinde sarsıcı bir keşif yolculuğu.” –The New Yorker

Hacim Hesabı Üzerine I.Cilt

Sophia Hersi Smith & Jennifer Russell

We're a little more than halfway through Balle's hypnotic, monumental seven-volume novel about a woman set adrift within the walls of November 18th. Balle's riveting project continues to wring ever more fascinating dimensions from time and its hapless, mortal captives. In Book III we saw the addition of a handful of new characters to Tara's world--fellow travelers within November 18th--and now Book IV heralds the arrival of many others, and soon to be even more, roaming uncertainly through the same November day. Could this be the first stirrings of an alternate civilization? The big house in Bremen turns into the headquarters for this growing group of time-trapped individuals. But who are they and what has happened to them? Are they loopers, repeaters, or returners? A brilliant modern spin on the myth of Babel in the Book of Genesis, Book IV asks urgent questions, concerning the naming of things, of people, and of the functions of language itself-must a social movement have a common language in order to exist? Snatches of conversation, argument, and late-night chatter crowd onto the pages of Tara's notebooks. Amid the buzz and excitement of a new social order coming into being, Book IV ends with a sudden, unexpected, and tantalizing cliffhanger that no one--not even Tara, our steady cataloger and cartographer of the endless November day--could have foreseen.

On the Calculation of Volume (Book IV)

Tara Selter is one of many. In a sprawling villa on the outskirts of Bremen, Tara Selter is starting to settle into a new kind of eighteenth of November. Her days with Henry, Ralf and Olga revolve around the daily routines of practical chores: gathering provisions, splitting firewood. But one morning, there are five new arrivals at their wrought-iron gate. Now the villa is full of people. As their community grows, their search for answers about the eighteenth of November becomes more urgent. Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize and Winner of the Nordic Council Prize for Literature, On the Calculation of Volume IV is the fourth volume of the poetic, page-turning European masterpiece about one woman's fall through the cracks of time. 'Absolutely, absolutely incredible.' Karl Ove Knausgård 'A total explosion.' Nicole Krauss 'Unforgettable.' Hernan Díaz 'Breathtaking.' Chetna Maroo 'Brilliant.' Jon McGregor 'Absolutely marvellous.' Lauren Groff

On the Calculation of Volume IV

The fourth installment of Balle’s expansive, and highly ambitious On the Calculation of Volume teems with new faces, new people, and voices from every corner of the western world We’re a little more than halfway through Balle’s hypnotic, monumental seven-volume novel about a woman set adrift within the walls of November 18th. Balle’s riveting project continues to wring ever more fascinating dimensions from time and its hapless, mortal captives. In Book III we saw the addition of a handful of new characters to Tara’s world—fellow travelers within November 18th—and now Book IV heralds the arrival of many others, and soon to be even more, roaming uncertainly through the same November day. Could this be the first stirrings of an alternate civilization? The big house in Bremen turns into the headquarters for this growing group of time-trapped individuals. But who are they and what has happened to them? Are they loopers, repeaters, or returners? A brilliant modern spin on the myth of Babel in the Book of Genesis, Book IV asks urgent questions, concerning the naming of things, of people, and of the functions of language itself–must a social movement have a common language in order to exist? Snatches of conversation, argument, and late-night chatter crowd onto the pages of Tara’s notebooks. Amid the buzz and excitement of a new social order coming into being, Book IV ends with a sudden, unexpected, and tantalizing cliffhanger that no one—not even Tara, our steady cataloger and cartographer of the endless November day—could have foreseen.

In the marvelous third installment of Balle's "astonishing" (The Washington Post) septology, Tara's November 18th transforms when she discovers that she is no longer alone in her endless autumnal day. For she has met someone who remembers, and who knows as well as she does that "it is autumn, but that we're not heading into winter. That spring and summer will not follow. That the reds and yellows of the trees are here to stay. That yesterday doesn't mean the seventeenth of November, that tomorrow means the eighteenth, and that the nineteenth is a day we may never see." Where Book I and II focused on a single woman's involuntary journey away from her life and her loved ones and into the chasm of time, Book III brings us back into the realm of companionship, with all its thrills, odd quirks, and a sense of mutual bewilderment at having to relearn how to exist alongside others in a shared reality. And then of course, what of Tara's husband Thomas, still sitting alone day after day, entirely unawares, in their house in Clarion-sous-Bois, waiting for his wife to return? Blending poetry and philosophical inquiry with rich reflections on our discombobulating times, Balle's On the Calculation of Volume asks us to consider: What is a single person's responsibility to humanity and to the preservation of this world?

On the Calculation of Volume (Book III)

Tara Selter is no longer alone. Tara Selter has lived the eighteenth of November 1,143 times when she notices a break in the pattern: a man has changed his shirt. The man is Henry Dale, and he remembers all the days that have come before. He knows that time has fallen out of joint. Now they are two of a kind - trapped in the eighteenth of November, but no longer alone. Together they learn to share their present; their voices grow hoarse recounting their small battles against it and their bewilderment at the disintegrating world. Henry sees things differently to Tara: he does not think that time will put itself back together and he does not think that the future will come around. But he makes her realise that she is no longer the same person she was before this fault in time. And he makes her believe that there may be others to find within it. Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize and Winner of the Nordic Council Prize for Literature, On the Calculation of Volume III is the third volume of the poetic, page-turning European masterpiece about one woman's fall through the cracks of time. 'Absolutely, absolutely incredible.' Karl Ove Knausgård 'A total explosion.' Nicole Krauss 'Extraordinary.' Daisy Johnson 'Unforgettable.' Hernan Díaz 'Breathtaking.' Chetna Maroo 'Brilliant.' Jon McGregor 'Absolutely marvellous.' Lauren Groff

On the Calculation of Volume III

“A literary phenomenon nearly forty years in the making, and a speculative masterwork” (New York Magazine), Balle’s epic On the Calculation of Volume in Book III introduces new thrills to the adventures of Tara Selter’s endless November day LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR TRANSLATED LITERATURE In the marvelous third installment of Balle’s “astonishing” (The Washington Post) septology, Tara’s November 18th transforms when she discovers that she is no longer alone in her endless autumnal day. For she has met someone who remembers, and who knows as well as she does that “it is autumn, but that we’re not heading into winter. That spring and summer will not follow. That the reds and yellows of the trees are here to stay. That yesterday doesn’t mean the seventeenth of November, that tomorrow means the eighteenth, and that the nineteenth is a day we may never see.” Where Book I and II focused on a single woman’s involuntary journey away from her life and her loved ones and into the chasm of time, Book III brings us back into the realm of companionship, with all its thrills, odd quirks, and a sense of mutual bewilderment at having to relearn how to exist alongside others in a shared reality. And then of course, what of Tara’s husband Thomas, still sitting alone day after day, entirely unawares, in their house in Clarion-sous-Bois, waiting for his wife to return? Blending poetry and philosophical inquiry with rich reflections on our discombobulating times, Balle’s On the Calculation of Volume asks us to consider: What is a single person’s responsibility to humanity and to the preservation of this world?

''Om udregning af rumfang III'' er bind 3. i Solvej Balles 7-delte fortælling.

Tara Selter er fanget i en tidslomme. D. 18. november gentager sig igen og igen. Hver dag forsøger hun, at få tiden til at gå. Hun rejser efter vinteren i nord og til sommeren i syd, men det hjælper ikke. Det bliver ved at være d. 18. november. Men så gør hun en besynderlig opdagelse: Hun er ikke den eneste, der fanget i denne dag.

I ''Om udregning af rumfang III'' udfolder Solvej Balle flere sider af sin dragende og originale fortælling.

Om udregning af rumfang III

Om utregning av romfang 4

''Om udregning af rumfang II'' er anden del af Solvej Balles roman i syv dele.
Tara Selter er efter en kort rejse blevet fanget i den attende november,  som nu har gentaget sig i 368 dage. Hun er vendt tilbage til Paris i håbet om, at hun efter et år i den attende november ville kunne vende tilbage til en normal tid, men det er ikke lykkedes. Nu begiver Tara Selter sig ud på en rejse for at få året til at gå. Hun ønsker vinter og rejser mod nord, mod sne, og senere ønsker hun forår og sommer og rejser afsted for at finde vejr, der passer. Til sidst ender hun i Düsseldorf, og må erkende, at hun lever i en efterårsdag, at der ikke er noget, der hedder år, når man lever i den attende november.

Om udregning af rumfang II

Om utregning av romfang 3

Om utregning av romfang

L'enigma. Il volume del tempo

Tara Selter bor i Clairon-sous-Bois i norra Frankrike med sin man Thomas. De handlar med antikvariska böcker. Den 17 november åker hon till en antikmässa, tar in på hotell, köper böcker och besöker några vänner. Där bränner hon sig på handen. Nästa morgon upptäcker hon att tidningarna i hotellmatsalen fortfarande har gårdagens datum och att samma saker händer som dagen före. Böckerna hon köpte är borta och hon går för att köpa dem igen. Sedan reser hon hem. Thomas undrar varför hon kommer redan och Tara förstår att hon är den enda som upplever den 18 november. Hela världen står still, vädret är detsamma, alla gör exakt samma sak dag efter dag. Men för Tara fortsätter tiden att gå. Såret på hennes hand läker och hennes hår växer. Varje dag förklarar hon för Thomas vad som händer och varje dag tror han henne. Till slut tröttnar hon och flyttar in i gästrummet. Thomas saknar henne inte eftersom han tror att hon ska komma hem nästa dag. Tara inleder olika strategier för att stå ut. Hon skriver och promenerar, hon köper en stjärnkikare och gör sig vän med himlavalvet, hon sätter ett streck i dagboken för varje dag som passerar och när 18 november närmar sig på nytt reser hon till samma mässa och tar in på samma hotell."Om uträkning av omfång" är en hisnande utforskning av vår plats på jorden: av minne, tid, historia, kärlek, ensamhet och frihet.[Bokinfo].

Solvej Balle

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