Vizma Belševica (1931 – 2005) is a Latvian poet, writer and translator. She was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. She spent most of her childhood in prewar Riga, the capital city of then democratic Latvia. Riga is often featured in her works, especially her famous autobiographic trilogy, however, the time she spent at the countryside with relatives also had a lasting impact on her writing. Despite growing up in a poor family, she spent much of her time reading classical literature. Vizma Belševica's poetry was first published in 1947, and 1955 saw the publishing of her first book of poems. During the post-Soviet period, Belševica wrote three semi-autobiographical books about a girl called Bille, following her life from the late 1930s, throughout the first year of Soviet occupation of Latvia (1940–41), the Nazi occupation (1941–45), and the first post-war years under Stalin's regime: Bille [Bille], 1992, 95), Bille un karš [Bille and War] (1996), Billes skaistā jaunība [The Wonderful Youth of Bille] (1999). On December 6, 1990, she was elected honorary member of the Latvian Academy of Sciences; and has received the highest award of the Latvian State – the Order of the Three Stars. Belševica's poetry and fiction has been translated in nearly 40 languages. Her poems were translated into English by Inara Cedrins for the anthology Contemporary Latvian Poetry published by the University of Iowa Press in 1983.