An extract from On the Calculation of Volume I by Solvej Balle, translated by Barbara J. Haveland
In the first part of Solvej Balle’s epic septology, Tara Selter has slipped out of time. Every morning, she wakes up to the 18th of November
In the first part of Solvej Balle’s epic septology, Tara Selter has slipped out of time. Every morning, she wakes up to the 18th of November
She no longer expects to wake up to the 19th of November, and she no longer remembers the 17th of November as if it were yesterday. She comes to know the shape of the day like the back of her hand – the grey morning light in her Paris hotel; the moment a blackbird breaks into song; her husband’s surprise at seeing her return home unannounced.
But for everyone around her, this day is lived for the first and only time. They do not remember the other 18ths of November, and they do not believe her when she tries to explain.
As Tara approaches her 365th 18th of November, she can’t shake the feeling that somewhere underneath the surface of this day, there’s a way to escape.
On the Calculation of Volume I is the first book of a planned septology. Five books have been published in Danish so far, with translations underway in over 20 countries.
On the Calculation of Volume I was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2025, announced on April 8 2025.
Barbara J. Haveland
About the Translator
Barbara J. Haveland is a Scottish literary translator, based in CopenhagenLucy Boynton reads from On the Calculation of Volume I
It takes a familiar narrative trope – a protagonist inexplicably stuck in the same day – and transforms it into a profound meditation on love, connectedness and what it means to exist
— The 2025 judges on On the Calculation of Volume I
What the judges said
‘On the Calculation of Volume I takes a potentially familiar narrative trope – a protagonist inexplicably stuck in the same day – and transforms it into a profound meditation on love, connectedness and what it means to exist, to want to be alive, to need to share one’s time with others. The sheer quality of the sentences was what struck us most, rendered into English with deft, invisible musicality by the translator. This book presses its mood, its singular time signature and its philosophical depth into the reader. You feel you are in it, which is sometimes unnerving, sometimes soothing, and this effect lingers long after the book is finished.’
What the critics said
Hilary Leichter, The New York Times
‘I braced myself while reading Books I and II of the Danish writer Solvej Balle’s septology, “On the Calculation of Volume,” the story of an antiquarian book dealer who finds herself stuck in a single day. I wondered if repetition, as a form, had anything left to reveal, and then wondered — wait, haven’t I had this thought before? This, too, is a convention of the time-loop plot, the protagonist’s conviction that there’s nothing new to learn, that a moment experienced hundreds of times has been cataloged, conquered and completely understood.’
Jake Casella Brookins, Locus Magazine
‘Balle’s combination of narrator and setup is quietly genius. On the Calculation of Volume is not about comic repetition in the style of Groundhog Day, more in tune with the uncertainty and uncanniness of something like Russian Doll…Balle has nailed – and Haveland has ably translated – a remarkably believable, organic voice, a kind of quotidian existential mode that is equally suited to evocative descriptions of the world and to perceptive ruminations on the nature of time, relationships, and the self.’
Rhian Sasseen, The Atlantic
‘On the Calculation of Volume’s premise could, in other hands, be reduced to a gimmick. But in Haveland’s rendering, Balle’s stripped-down prose has an understated clarity that lends philosophical resonance to this fantastical setup.’
Morten Hoi Jensen, The Washington Post
‘Written in intermittent diary-like entries of varying length, “On the Calculation of Volume” is at once scrupulously realistic and intriguingly speculative. Balle succeeds in conveying the texture of Tara’s changing feelings, her shifting moods. There are moments of crisis and accident interspersed with bursts of enthusiasm and even, at times, hope.’
Publisher’s Weekly
‘Among the stunning qualities of Balle’s brilliant narrative is the way it suspends judgment, simultaneously sustaining the possibility that Tara has gone insane and that she really is caught in a “rift in time.” There are no easy answers in this deeply mysterious tale. Readers won’t be able to look away.’
Solvej Balle on On the Calculation of Volume I
‘My book is just another time-loop story: A woman, Tara Selter, is trapped in the 18th of November. In a way, I didn’t want to tell this story. I got the idea in 1987 – it probably sprang from some reflections about time after writing my first book, mixed with what I was reading at the time – but the more I thought about it, the more foolish the idea seemed to me, even more so after the Hollywood comedy Groundhog Day came out. I tried to get rid of the idea, but it kept coming back, so in the end I realised that the only way out was to write it. The idea generated so much material that I just wanted to explore it.’
Read the full interview here.
Barbara J. Haveland on On the Calculation of Volume I
‘Solvej Balle’s work is an inspiration in itself. It’s spare and taut. There’s nothing superfluous here, nothing random. Every word is weighed, every phrase and sentence finely honed. The challenge for the translator is to produce a faithful and felicitous rendering in English of her distilled prose. The pleasure lies in working closely with the author to achieve this end – always a happy and fruitful collaboration.’
Read the full interview here.
