Benjamin Alire Saenz, a writer and artist from El Paso, Texas, has died at the age of 71 after a long illness.
Saenz wrote for various age groups and earned several awards for his work. Saenz’s novel carry me like water and poetry collection Dark and Perfect Angels Received the Southwest Book Awards in 1996, and won the PEN/Faulkner Book Award for Fiction in 2013 with his book. It all starts and ends at the Kentucky ClubA short story collection. He was the first Latino to win this honor.
Saenz has seen her young adult literature also garner numerous accolades, including a Printz Honor, the Pura Belpré Award, and a Stonewall Book Award in 2013. Aristotle and Dante discovered the secrets of the universe. That book was made into a film in 2023 and translated into 25 languages.
Saenz was born in New Mexico to a large family, and earned a degree from St. Thomas Seminary in Colorado. He then studied theology and entered the Catholic priesthood in El Paso for several years before leaving the post. Saenz earned a master’s degree in creative writing. Much of his work explored the border areas and he maintained long-term relationships with El Paso publisher Cinco Puntos Press.
Saenz’s personal life was at times complicated. At times, he struggled with drug addiction and alcohol abuse, attending therapy several times to deal with the difficulties. He attributed many of his challenges to his young life, when a family member sexually abused him. He cited this as why he decided to leave the priesthood, even though his faith was never questioned.
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Many of Saenz’s books explore queerness. He talked about how writing helped her find solace in her queer identity-After being married to his wife for 15 years, he came out as gay at the age of 54. He credits therapy for helping him understand this about himself.
In an interview with NPR About this Aristotle and DanteSaenz talked about how writing the book was a cathartic experience for him:
“I think I needed to write this book because I had a lot of difficulty coming to terms with my sexuality,” he says. Saenz’s coming out came much later in life, when he was 54. “I was abused as a boy, and the idea of being with a man was not very appealing, to say the least.”
But a friend of his saw the book as a way for Saenz to come to terms with this identity, he says. “After reading it she said, ‘Ben, you’ve given yourself a gift.’ “
He noted a special kinship with Ari, especially when it came to fearing for his life.
“He is such a person that once he finds out what the truth is, he doesn’t run away from it,” Sainz said in an interview El Paso Inc. “Once he realizes he loves Dante, it becomes one of the truths of his life. He’s not going to run away from it. He’s going to live it.”
Saenz not only wrote books. He was also an artist, interested in painting photography.
In 2020, Saenz earned a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Texas Institute of Letters. Her last book, a young adult novel, is titled when the world was happyhas already earned two starred reviews even before its release on September 29. It is a story about friendship and dealing with life’s changes and challenges, and like many of Saenz’s prior works, is set in El Paso.
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