Benjamin Saenz

Benjamin Alire Sáenz lives in El Paso and teaches in University of Texas at El Paso’s bilingual MFA writer’s program. His body of work spans the genres of poetry, essay, short stories, and novels, and most often depicts the ethnic and cultural groups of the Southwest. His writing often emphasizes the violence of American

society, as well as the determination and spirit of resistance among its disenfranchised people.

Sáenz was born on August 16, 1954, in Old Picacho, a farming community outside Las Cruces, New Mexico. He was the fourth of seven children of Eloisa Chavez Alire and Juan Villanueva Sáenz. His parents originally worked as seasonal cotton pickers but his father later found work as a cement finisher and his mother as a cook.

At home the boy spoke Spanish, while at public school he learned to speak and write in English. He entered the seminary in 1972 and graduated from the University of Louvain in Belgium in 1980 with a master's degree in theology. The next year he was ordained a Catholic priest. Several years later, he left the priesthood and entered the University of Texas at El Paso, where he received an M.A. in creative writing in 1988. He also studied at the University of Iowa and then at Stanford University, where he pursued doctoral studies in English. In 1994 Sáenz married Patricia Macias.

Sáenz’s first book was the poetry collection Calendar of Dust (1991), which won the American Book Award. A year later he received the prestigious Lannan Poetry Fellowship and lived and wrote for a time in Marfa, Texas. He has received many other honors, among them the Wallace E. Stegner Fellowship in creative writing from Stanford University for two consecutive years, 1988 and 1989.

• Other collections of poetry: Dark and Perfect Angels (Cinco Puntos Press 1995), Elegies in Blue (Cinco Puntos 2002), The Book of What Remains (Copper Canyon Press 2010), Dreaming the End of War, a poem cycle (Copper Canyon 2006).
• Novels: The House of Forgetting (HarperCollins 1997), Carry Me Like Water (Rayo 2005), In Perfect Light (Harper Perennial 2008), Names on a Map (Harper Perennial 2008). 
• Young adult fiction: Sammy and Juliana in Hollywood (Cinco Puntos 2004), Last Night I Sang to the Monster (Cinco Puntos 2009), He Forgot to Say Goodbye (Simon & Schuster 2008 [HC], 2010 [Paper]) 
• Young children’s books (bilingual): Abuelita Fina y Sus Sombrillas Maravillosas/ Grandmother Fina and Her Wonderful Umbrellas (Cinco Puntos 2001), A Gift from Papa Diego: Un Regalo de Papa Diego (Cinco Puntos 2008 ), A Perfect Season for Dreaming/Un Tiempo Perfecto Para Sonar (Cinco Puntos 2008, 2010), The Dog Who Loved Tortillas/La Perrita Que Le Encantaban Las Tortillas (Cinco Puntos 2009)