Benjamin Alire Sáenz

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Benjamin Alire Sáenz at the 2009 Texas Book Festival

Benjamin Alire Sáenz (born August 16, 1954 in Doña Ana County , New Mexico ) is an award-winning American writer and poet.

Life

Benjamin Alire Sáenz was born in Old Picacho , Doña Ana County , and was the fourth of seven children. He grew up on a small farm near Las Cruces . In the fall of 1972 he entered St. Thomas Seminary in Denver , where he received his BA in Humanities and Philosophy in 1977 . From 1977 to 1981 he studied theology at Louvain University in Leuven . He then worked as a priest in El Paso for a few years .

From 1985 he studied English and creative writing at the University of Texas at El Paso, where he earned his MA in creative writing . He then spent a year at the University of Iowa as a graduate student in American literature . A year later he was awarded the Wallace Stegner E. Scholarship from Stanford University . For the next two years he took part in the PhD program at Stanford University. During this time the first volume of poetry followed: Calendar of Dust , for which Benjamin Alire Sáenz received the American Book Award in 1992 . Before completing his doctorate, he moved back to the University of Texas in El Paso, where he taught in the bilingual MFA program. Today Sáenz teaches creative writing there.

Sáenz admitted his homosexuality at the age of 54 . In an interview, he confirmed that he had had difficulty dealing with this issue for a long time and that he saw writing as a way of overcoming it.

In 2013 Benjamin Alire Sáenz became the first Latino to win the prestigious PEN / Faulkner Book Award for Fiction with Everything begins & ends at the Kentucky Club .

Awards

  • Wallace Stegner E. Fellowship
  • Calendar of Dust , American Book Award 1992
  • Lannan Poetry Fellowship 1993
  • Carry Me Like Water , Southwest Book Award 1996
  • Dark and Perfect Angels , Southwest Book Award 1996
  • Grandma Fina and Her Wonderful Umbrellas , Best Children's Book 2000 (Texas Institute of Letters)
  • Sammy and Juliana in Hollywood , Americas Book Award, the Paterson Book Prize, the J Hunt Award, Finalist Los Angeles Book Prize, BBYA Top Ten Books for Young Adults
  • He Forgot to Say Goodby , Tomás Rivera Mexican American Children's Book Award, Southwest Book Award, Chicago Public Library, Best of the Best Books for Teens, New York Public Library Stuff for the Teen 2009, Commended Title, Americas Book Award 2009
  • A Perfect Season for Dreaming , Best Children's Book, Friends of the Austin Public Library 2008 (Texas Institute of Letters), Bank Street Best Children's Books of the Year 2008, Kirkus Review 2008 Notable Books for Children, Paterson Book Prize [11]
  • Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club , Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction 2012 and PEN / Faulkner Award for Fiction 2013
  • Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe , Stonewall Book Award Mike Morgan & Larry Romans Children's and Young Adult Literature Award 2013; Honor Book, Michael L. Printz Award 2013; Pura Belpré Award 2013

bibliography

Volumes of poetry

  • Calendar of Dust , 1991
  • Dark and Perfect Angels , 1995
  • Elegies in Blue , 2002
  • Dreaming the End of War , 2006
  • The Book of What Remains , 2010

stories

  • Flowers for the Broken , 1992
  • Everything begins and ends in the Kentucky Club , German by Sabine Hedinger , Ripperger & Kremers, Berlin 2014. ISBN 978-3-943999-15-0 . (original: Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club ).

Novels

  • Carry Me Like Water , 1995
  • The House of Forgetting , 1997
  • En el tiempo de la Luz , 2006
  • In Perfect Light , 2008
  • Names on a Map , 2008

Books for children and young readers

  • A Gift from Papa Diego , 1999
  • Grandma Fina and Her Wonderful Umbrellas , 2001
  • Sammy and Juliana in Hollywood , 2004
  • He Forgot to Say Goodbye , 2008
  • A Perfect Season for Dreaming , 2008
  • The Dog Who Loved Tortillas , 2009
  • Last Night I Sang to the Monster , 2009
  • Aristoteles and Dante discover the secrets of the universe , German by Brigitte Jakobeit, Thienemann Verlag, Stuttgart 2014. ISBN 978-3-522201-92-6 . (original: Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe ).

Web links

Remarks

  1. ^ Benjamin Alire Sáenz: Discovering Sexuality Through Teen Lit. NPR, February 20, 2013, accessed August 5, 2015 .
  2. ↑ Receipt on the PEN / Faulkner Prize website , accessed on June 17, 2014.
personal data
SURNAME Sáenz, Benjamin Alire
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American writer and lyric poet
DATE OF BIRTH August 16, 1954
PLACE OF BIRTH Doña Ana County , New Mexico