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An extraordinary love story and a captivating novel about the power of memory and imagination: Flanders 1922.
After serving as a soldier in the Great War, Noon Merckem has lost his memory and lives in a psychiatric asylum. Countless women, responding to a newspaper ad, visit him there in the hope of finding their spouse who vanished in battle. One day a woman, Julienne, appears and recognizes Noon as her husband, the photographer Amand Coppens, and takes him home against medical advice. But their miraculous reunion doesn't turn out the way that Julienne wants her envious friends to believe. Only gradually do the two grow close, and Amand's biography is pieced together on the basis of Julienne's stories about him. But how can he be certain that she's telling the truth? In The Remembered Soldier, Anjet Daanje immerses us in the psyche of a war-traumatized man who has lost his identity. When Amand comes to doubt Julienne's word, the reader is caught up in a riveting spiral of confusion that only the greatest of literature can achieve.
What are you reading this week? And what did you think of last week’s books? (3/5/2026)
...or. I think Vlautin is one of the best writers that doesn't get enough attention Now I'm listening to Train Dreams by Dennis Johnson and I'm starting The Remembered Soldier by Anjet Daanje. This has appeared on a few prize lists and has been highly reviewed by many readers brave enough to tackle its length.
-Anne_Glasgow
2025 National Book Awards Finalists Announced
Here's the list! Which ones have you read? Which are on your radar? Fiction : Rabih Alameddine, The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) Megha Majumdar, A Guardian and a Thief Karen Russell, The Antidote Ethan Rutherford, North Sun: Or, the Voyage of the Whaleship Esther Bryan Wa...
-kim.kovacs
"The phenomenal English-language debut from Daanje weaves an affecting love story through a tangle of memories and dreams...The complex and layered narrative is as moving as it is unsettling, and it will keep readers wondering about the truth long after the final page. It's a remarkable achievement." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Grapples with fragile versions of the truth...The Remembered Soldier, a luminous historical novel, mines the seams between a veteran's traumas and restored hope." —Foreword Reviews (starred review)
"This is a story about healing a soldier's mind after surviving years of carnage, and it is about restoring mutual trust and love after so much has happened...an absorbing tale." —Kirkus Reviews
This information about The Remembered Soldier was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Anjet Daanje, the pseudonym of Anjet den Boer who was born in 1965, writes novels, short stories, and screenplays. The Remembered Soldier has won the top literary prizes in her native Netherlands, including the 2020 F. Bordewijk Prize, the Best Book of Groningen Prize, and was longlisted for the 2020 Libris Literature Prize.
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