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 The University of Wisconsin–Whitewater (UW–Whitewater or UWW) is a public university in Whitewater, Wisconsin, United States. It is part of the University of Wisconsin System. As of Fall 2024, the university offers 47 undergraduate majors ...

. Her 1995 memoir '' A Woman in Amber'' won the

American Book Award The American Book Awards are an American literary award that annually recognizes a set of books and people for "outstanding literary achievement". According to the 2010 awards press release, it is "a writers' award given by other writers" and "t ...

from the

Before Columbus Foundation The Before Columbus Foundation is a nonprofit organization founded in 1976 by Ishmael Reed, "dedicated to the promotion and dissemination of contemporary American multicultural literature". The Foundation makes annual awards for books published in ...

in 1996.

Early life and education

Nesaule was born in

Nītaure Nītaure is a village in Nītaure Parish, Cēsis Municipality in the Vidzeme region of Latvia Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along w ...

, Latvia, as the daughter of Peteris V. Nesaule and Valda Nesaule. Her father was a

Lutheran Lutheranism is a major branch of Protestantism that emerged under the work of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German friar and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practices of the Catholic Church launched ...

minister; her mother earned a Ph.D in her seventies. 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 World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. The family lived in a displaced persons camp, and moved to the United States in 1950, when she was 12 years old. Nesaule attended

Shortridge High School Shortridge High School is a public high school located in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States. Shortridge is the home of the International Baccalaureate and arts and humanities programs of the Indianapolis Public Schools district (IPS). Origina ...

, and won a statewide Latin competition in Indiana; the prize was a four-year scholarship to

Indiana University Bloomington Indiana University Bloomington (IU Bloomington, Indiana University, IU, IUB, or Indiana) is a public university, public research university in Bloomington, Indiana, United States. It is the flagship university, flagship campus of Indiana Univer ...

. She earned a bachelor's and a master's degree at Indiana, and completed doctoral studies in English at the

University of Wisconsin–Madison The University of Wisconsin–Madison (University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin, UW, UW–Madison, or simply Madison) is a public land-grant research university in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. It was founded in 1848 when Wisconsin achieved st ...

. 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 Women's studies is an academic field that draws on Feminism, feminist and interdisciplinary methods to place women's lives and experiences at the center of study, while examining Social constructionism, social and cultural constructs of gender; ...

program in 1972. Her memoir ''A Woman in Amber: Healing the Trauma of War and Exile'' (1995) won the American Book Award in 1996. She also published two novels, and academic articles. In 1998, Nesaule was an invited guest when President

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician and lawyer who was the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, ...

signed the agreement required to allow Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia to join

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...

. 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 A declaration of independence is an assertion by a polity in a defined territory that it is independent and constitutes a state. Such places are usually declared from part or all of the territory of another state or failed state, or are breaka ...

and the

Constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organization or other type of entity, and commonly determines how that entity is to be governed. When these pri ...

. I am immensely grateful for all that this country has given me, yet I feel I do not really belong here."

Publications

*"A Doris Lessing Checklist" (1973) *"Women and Crime: Sexism in Allingham, Sayers, and Christie" (1974, with Margot Peters) *"Why Women Kill" (1975, with

Margot Peters Margot Peters (May 13, 1933 - June 18, 2022) was an American novelist and biographer, including of Charlotte Brontë, George Bernard Shaw, Mrs. Patrick Campbell, the Drews and Barrymores, May Sarton, Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne. She was a re ...

) *"Doris Lessing's Feminist Plays" (1976) *"Murder in Academe" (1977, with Margot Peters) *"What Happened to Aspazija? In Search of Feminism in Latvia" (1993) *''A Woman in Amber: Healing the Trauma of War and Exile'' (1995) *''In Love with Jerzy Kosinski: A Novel'' (2010) *"Feminism and Art in Fay Weldon's Novels" (2013) *''Lost Midsummers: A Novel of Women's Friendship in Exile'' (2019) *"Exile is irreversible" (2019)

Personal life

Nesaule married a fellow English professor, Harry Krouse. They had a son, Boris. They divorced. She died in

Madison, Wisconsin Madison is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. It is the List of municipalities in Wisconsin by population, second-most populous city in the state, with a population of 269,840 at the 2020 Uni ...

in 2022, at the age of 84.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nesaule, Agate 1938 births 2022 deaths 20th-century Latvian women American women writers University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni American memoirists American women novelists Indiana University Bloomington alumni American people of Latvian descent Latvian emigrants to the United States Latvian World War II refugees People from Cēsis Municipality