A Woman in Amber: Healing the Trauma of War and Exile by Agate Nesaule

In A Woman in Amber: Healing the Trauma of War and Exile, Agate Nesaule brings together truths from a place in history that many probably did not know existed, and her descriptions of the horrors and the deprivations inflicted on innocent people remain with the reader long after the book is finished and returned to its shelf. A Woman in Amber is a fitting tribute not only to those who suffered death or exile during the Soviet invasion of Latvia in the 1940s but also to those who remained behind. The book is split into two sections: the first dealing with the author’s experiences in Latvia and her forced exile to Germany, the second describing her life in America as a refugee.

I found the book interesting more especially given the fact that, in parts, it parallels my own book The Space in Between– a book in which the effect of WWII on Latvia in particular and the Baltic countries in general,as well as exile and the plight of the refugee,play a central part.