Knuts Lesins, a native of St. Petersburg, Russia, lived in Riga, Latvia, from an early age until he left the country during World War II. He came to the United States in 1950. Mr. Lesins’ novels and short stories have been published in the Latvian language in Latvia, Germany, and Sweden. He was awarded the first prize of the Latvian Cultural Fund for his volume of short stories Reflections, published in Germany in 1946, and he won a prize of the Latvian-European Cultural Fund in 1956 for the short story Linden Blossom.