Memory, War, and Translation: David McKay on The Remembered Soldier by Anjet Daanje

https://substack.com/@thebigbookprojectIn this episode of The Big Book Project, host Lori Feathers is joined by acclaimed translator David McKay to explore The Remembered Soldier, the haunting and deeply psychological novel by Anjet Daanje, newly released in English by New Vessel Press.This episode unpacks the long journey of bringing The Remembered Soldier from a small regional publisher in the Netherlands to international acclaim—and finally, to English-speaking readers. David shares what drew him to this remarkable work, the challenges of translating its dreamlike prose, and how the novel’s layered structure slowly unravels its mysteries.📚 The Remembered Soldier follows a WWI Belgian soldier found wounded and nameless in a Ghent asylum. Claimed by a woman who says she is his wife, he’s thrust into a fragile new life that forces him to question everything—his identity, her memories, and even reality itself.💡 In This Episode:The real-life inspiration behind the soldier's condition and asylum adsThe psychological tension of memory, identity, and trustDaanje’s radical narrative style and sentence structureHow trauma and war echo in everyday ritualsThe literary legacy of Daanje's work and her next novel, The Song of Stork and DromedaryThis conversation is a deep dive into what makes The Remembered Soldier so unforgettable—and why readers and book clubs alike will be talking about it for years to come.If you’re reading The Remembered Soldier or planning to, don’t do it alone.📩 Join the discussion on Substack and share your takeaways.🎧 Subscribe to The Big Book Project on your favorite platform for more conversations with authors, translators, and literary thinkers.💬 Leave a review and share this episode with your fellow readers—especially the ones who love to talk about books that get under your skin.Chapters00:00 – Introduction to Translator David McKay00:39 – Discovering Anjet Daanje and The Remembered Soldier03:00 – How the Novel Reached an English Audience04:16 – The Historical Reality of Forgotten Soldiers06:06 – Who Is Noon Merkham?07:11 – Homecoming, Photography, and a Life Reclaimed09:25 – Paranoia, Love, and the Shifting Mind11:51 – Sentence Structure as a Reflection of Memory13:49 – Sample Reading: Paranoia in the Darkness16:12 – Is Julianne Telling the Truth?22:17 – Memory as Performance: Photography and Reenactment24:15 – Battlefield Tourism and Sanitized History25:29 – Claustrophobia, Monotony, and Emotional Repetition27:44 – What Was Left Unsaid (Without Spoilers)28:59 – The Next Novel: The Song of Stork and Dromedary34:22 – Dutch vs. English: Word Count and Language36:11 – Final Stages of Translation and What’s Next38:10 – Co-Translating Off-White by Astrid Roemer39:40 – A Perfect Pick for Book ClubsThe Remembered Soldier, Anjet Daanje, David McKay translator, translated fiction 2025, World War I novel, literary fiction, Dutch literature in translation, memory and trauma in fiction, unreliable narrator, New Vessel Press, psychological historical fiction, book club recommendations, post-war novels, The Big Book Project, Lori Feathers podcast, literary podcast 2025