Agate Nesaule
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Agate Nesaule | |
|---|---|
 Agate Nesaule, from the 1956 yearbook of Shortridge High School | |
| Born | January 23, 1938 Nītaure, Latvia |
| Died | June 29, 2022 (aged 84) Madison, Wisconsin |
| Other names | Agate Nesaule Krouse |
| Occupations | Writer, college professor |
| Notable work | Woman in Amber (1995) |
| Awards | American Book Award (1996) |
Agate Nesaule (January 23, 1938 – June 29, 2022) was a Latvian-born American writer and professor of English on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater. Her 1995 memoir A Woman in Amber won the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation in 1996.[1]
Nesaule was born in Nītaure,[2] Latvia, as the daughter of Peteris V. Nesaule and Valda Nesaule.[3] Her father was a Lutheran minister; her mother earned a Ph.D in her seventies.[4][5] As a little girl, Nesaule fled the wartime upheaval with her family, and spent time as a child prisoner in Germany during World War II. The family lived in a displaced persons camp, and moved to the United States in 1950, when she was 12 years old.[6]
Nesaule attended Shortridge High School,[7] and won a statewide Latin competition in Indiana; the prize was a four-year scholarship to Indiana University Bloomington.[8][9] She earned a bachelor's and a master's degree at Indiana, and completed doctoral studies in English at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.[5] Her dissertation was titled "The Feminism of Doris Lessing" (1972).
Career
Nesaule was a professor of English at the University of Wisconsin Whitewater from 1963 to 1996. She and Ruth Schauer founded the school's women's studies program in 1972. Her memoir A Woman in Amber: Healing the Trauma of War and Exile (1995)[10] won the American Book Award in 1996.[5][11] She also published two novels, and academic articles.[12]
In 1998, Nesaule was an invited guest when President Bill Clinton signed the agreement required to allow Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia to join NATO.[13] In 2019, she wrote in an essay, "I have lived in the United States for 70 years. I am an American citizen in love with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. I am immensely grateful for all that this country has given me, yet I feel I do not really belong here."[14]
