{"id":390778,"date":"2026-07-29T16:42:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T16:42:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/390778\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T16:42:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T16:42:16","slug":"renowned-el-paso-author-artist-benjamin-alire-saenz-dies-at-71","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/390778\/","title":{"rendered":"Renowned El Paso author, artist Benjamin Alire S\u00e1enz dies at 71"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Avatar\"Avatar by\u00a0Cindy Ramirez<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Robert Moore<\/a> July 28, 2026<\/p>\n

\"\"\/Benjamin Alire S\u00e1enz is pictured in his writing studio in 2020, the year he received the Texas Institute of Letters’ Lifetime Achievement Award. His award-winning body of work includes the PEN\/Faulkner-winning “Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club” and the bestselling “Aristotle and Dante” novels. (Mark Lambie \/ El Paso Times file photo)<\/p>\n

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He was a farmboy, a priest, a teacher. He was a poet, novelist and artist.<\/p>\n

Benjamin Alire S\u00e1enz, the renowned El Paso author whose complex life and acclaimed work have been widely recognized, died Tuesday night after a lengthy illness. He was 71.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat Ben did that nobody else could get away with is be bold enough to be sentimental, to write heartbreaking things that some people might think are too emotional,\u201d said author Daniel Chac\u00f3n, a friend of S\u00e1enz who serves as chairman of the Creative Writing Department at the University of Texas at El Paso. \u201cThat\u2019s what he did best.\u201d<\/p>\n

Born Aug. 16, 1954, in Old Picacho, New Mexico, a small farming community near Las Cruces, S\u00e1enz became one of the Borderland\u2019s most revered authors \u2013 drawing from his life to pen his works.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is my stubborn heart that\u2019s made me the writer that I have become. There was no Plan B. I was going to become a writer,\u201d S\u00e1enz said in a\u00a0TEDx Talk in El Paso<\/a>\u00a0in 2023.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

He was the fourth of seven children, and often spoke about growing up poor, about never feeling like he fit in, and always turning to books to cope with \u2013 or often escape \u2013 his feelings.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am a living, functioning paradox. I have always known who I was, yet there were many moments when I was a stranger unto myself,\u201d he said in his TEDx Talk.<\/p>\n

\"\"Benjamin Alire S\u00e1enz celebrates the movie version of his young adult novel, \u201cAristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe,\u201d in 2023. (Ivan Pierre Aguirre for El Paso Matters)<\/p>\n

S\u00e1enz graduated from Las Cruces High School in 1972, and that fall entered the St. Thomas Seminary in Denver, where he received a bachelor\u2019s in humanities and philosophy. He studied theology at the University of Louvain in Belgium.<\/p>\n

He entered the Catholic priesthood, serving in El Paso for three years before leaving his order.<\/p>\n

\u201cBen was irrepressibly hopeful of the human spirit,\u201d said Ruben Garcia, founder of the Annunciation House network of migrant shelters in El Paso, who was friends with S\u00e1enz for about 55 years. They met through the Catholic Diocese. \u201cThat was non-negotiable for him \u2013 the human spirit \u2013 and he was incredibly protective about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Garcia called S\u00e1enz an \u201cincredible, faithful friend\u201d who was always the first to lend a hand \u2013 or a car. In 1984, Garcia recalled, S\u00e1enz offered him his car to drive across Central America to see firsthand why migrants were leaving their home countries and coming to the United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t just cross country,\u201d Garcia said about the trip in S\u00e1enz\u2019s old Nissan. \u201cIt was across the country of Mexico, the country of Guatemala, the country of El Salvador, the country of Honduras and then Nicaragua.\u201d<\/p>\n

After leaving the priesthood, S\u00e1enz returned to school, earning a master\u2019s in creative writing from UTEP in 1987. He joined the faculty at the university, teaching creative writing and serving as chair of the department while publishing poetry and fiction. He retired from the university in 2016.<\/p>\n

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In the early 1990s, S\u00e1enz married Patricia Macias. After more than a decade, they divorced, with Saenz coming out as gay following years of addiction battling drinking and dabbling in drugs, he told\u00a0El Paso Inc. Magazine<\/a>\u00a0in 2021.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if I feared it, or was ashamed of it or just didn\u2019t acknowledge it,\u201d he told the magazine about his struggles with accepting his identity. \u201cI had to come to terms with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Poet, novelist, and writer Benjamin Alire S\u00e1enz at his home office, (Ivan Pierre Aguirre for El Paso Matters)<\/p>\n

His writing blossomed in the 1990s, publishing his debut poetry collection, \u201cCalendar of Dust,\u201d which won an American Book Award; \u201cCarry Me Like Water,\u201d a novel about class, family and healing that won the Southwest Book Award; and \u201cThe House of Forgetting,\u201d a novel examining family secrets, trauma and identity.<\/p>\n

S\u00e1enz also authored many children\u2019s books, including \u201cThe Dog Who Loved Tortillas,\u201d and \u201cA Gift From Papa Diego,\u201d and in 2006, Cinco Puntos Press of El Paso published his young adult novel, \u201cSammy and Juliana in Hollywood.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

His two most prominent books were published in 2012.<\/p>\n

\u201cAristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe,\u201d a young adult novel set in El Paso in the 1980s, centers on two Mexican-American teenage boys who become friends and fall in love.\u00a0<\/p>\n

His collection of short stories, \u201cEverything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club,\u201d is set in El Paso, Ciudad Ju\u00e1rez and the bar at the foot of the international bridge that connects the two cities.<\/p>\n

Chac\u00f3n, who hosted the literary radio show \u201cWords on a Wire\u201d on KTEP with S\u00e1enz from about 2011 to 2014, said he recalls that a review of the \u201cKentucky Club\u201d called the book \u201ctoo sentimental.\u201d But moreso, he recalls S\u00e1enz saying that\u2019s where the connection with readers lies.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re writing and it doesn\u2019t hurt, it\u2019s probably not worth much,\u201d Chac\u00f3n recalled S\u00e1enz saying. \u201cHe was going for the jugular, he was going for the pain.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Benjamin Alire S\u00e1enz poses with his 2012 short story collection, \u201cEverything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club,\u201d at the Cinco Puntos Press offices in El Paso. The book won the 2013 PEN\/Faulkner Award for Fiction, making S\u00e1enz the first Latino and only the second gay writer to receive the honor. (Mark Lambie \/ El Paso Times file photo)<\/p>\n

In 2013, S\u00e1enz won the prestigious\u00a0PEN\/Faulkner Award for Fiction for \u201cEverything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club,\u201d becoming the first Latino and only the second gay writer to earn the honor. The book, published by Cinco Puntos Press, won a Lambda Literary Award and a Stonewall Honor.<\/p>\n

Lee and Bobby Byrd, who founded Cinco Puntos Press in El Paso in 1985, gravitated to Latino authors such as S\u00e1enz and Dagoberto Gilb.<\/p>\n

\u201cLatino writers were not at a premium. Nobody really was publishing them, and so Bobby and I, inadvertently, without really knowing what we were doing, were publishing people we really liked,\u201d Lee Byrd said. \u201cAnd then they began to take off, and the bigger houses began to want them to publish with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Byrd said her relationship with Saenz had its difficulties \u2013 because of his addiction issues, and because he moved on to publishing with Simon and Schuster when Cinco Puntos Press wasn\u2019t large enough to get his work to a mass audience.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Byrd visited Saenz at Sierra Medical Center\u00a0 on Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe did just say to me right now, \u2018I think I\u2019ve written my last book, and I don\u2019t think it matters anymore.\u2019 And that\u2019s kind of how I feel,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The Texas Institute of Letters honored S\u00e1enz with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2020.\u00a0<\/p>\n

El Paso-born author Sergio Troncoso, who served as president of the Texas Institute of Letters at that time, said Saenz is \u201csomeone whose life should be understood in all of its complexity, and it should be treasured and read and reread and discussed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Ben was a\u00a0fronterizo. I think that\u2019s what he would call himself, a man of the border, a man who lived through many borders,\u201d said Troncoso, who now lives in New York City.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Chris Barton, a children\u2019s book author and current president of the Texas Institute of Letters, said S\u00e1enz is \u201cone of (Texas\u2019) most significant writers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 2009, TIL inducted a poet, a children\u2019s book author, a terrific author of fiction, and a mentor and teacher to a lot of Texas writers. And that was all one person,\u201d Barton said of S\u00e1enz.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He acknowledged that S\u00e1enz\u2019s induction into TIL \u2013 an invitation-only organization that honors writers, journalists, and others who have made significant contributions to Texas letters \u2013 was long overdue.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether for reasons of geography or for reasons of bigotry, he did not receive the recognition from TIL that he should have received much earlier than he did, and that\u2019s on us. That\u2019s something for us to continue shaping our work,\u201d Barton said.<\/p>\n

In 2021, S\u00e1enz published \u201cAristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World,\u201d a sequel to the 2012 novel. The sequel reached No. 1 on the New York Times Best Sellers young adult novels list.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"The official movie poster for \u2018Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe,\u2019 based on a young adult novel by El Paso author Benjamin Alire S\u00e1enz<\/p>\n

The first \u201cAristotle and Dante\u201d novel was adapted into\u00a0an independent film of the same name<\/a>\u00a0in 2023.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe movie, like the book, is a love story,\u201d he told\u00a0El Paso Matters<\/a>\u00a0ahead of the film\u2019s release that year. \u201cBut it\u2019s not just Ari discovering he loves Dante. It\u2019s Ari discovering that he loves his parents \u2013 and that he loves himself, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE: \u2018It\u2019s a wonderful movie,\u2019 El Paso author Ben S\u00e1enz says of \u2018Aristotle and Dante\u2019 film adaptation of his novel<\/a><\/p>\n

The first \u201cAristotle and Dante\u201d book was named among\u00a0Time Magazine\u2019s 100 Best Young Adult Novels<\/a>\u00a0of All Time in 2021. The audiobook version of the sequel, voiced by songwriter and playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda, in 2022 was nominated for a\u00a0Grammy Award in the Best Audio Book<\/a>, Narration and Storytelling Recording category.<\/p>\n

Throughout the years, S\u00e1enz also had a passion for painting, telling El Paso Inc. Magazine that it provided him another creative outlet \u2013 especially when words weren\u2019t enough. He opened a small gallery, Studio 1921, in Downtown El Paso last\u00a0summer that has since closed.<\/p>\n

But he never stopped writing.<\/p>\n

At S\u00e1enz\u2019s hospital bed was a box filled with copies of one of his latest works, Garcia said, calling it yet another example of his friend\u2019s spirit.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the World Was Happy,\u201d about teenage twin sisters who have to rebuild their lives after a school shooting in El Paso, is set to be released Sept. 29 by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis book is about what remains after everything changes,\u201d\u00a0S\u00e1enz wrote on Instagram\u00a0<\/a>in February. \u201cI hope it finds the people who need it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Memorial fund established:\u00a0The El Paso Community Foundation has established the Benjamin Alire S\u00e1enz Literary Fund at his request, to establish a book festival in El Paso and support authors in the region.\u00a0Click here to donate<\/a>.<\/p>\n

S\u00e1enz also has a children\u2019s book being released Sept. 29,\u00a0\u201cGrandma Fina\u2019s Wonderful Umbrella,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0published by HarperCollins. It is illustrated by Ra\u00fal the Third, with color by Elaine Bay \u2013 both from El Paso.<\/p>\n

Ra\u00fal said he received a call from Anne Hoppe, an executive at HarperCollins, asking if he\u2019d be interested in illustrating a children\u2019s book by S\u00e1enz. The book had been previously published by Cinco Puntos Press, with illustrations by Geronimo Garcia.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said, \u2018I absolutely need to illustrate this book.\u2019 Ben was actually the very first author I ever heard speak,\u201d said Ra\u00fal, whose given name is Ra\u00fal Gonz\u00e1lez.<\/p>\n

Ra\u00fal, now 49 and living in Boston, was a high school dropout more than 30 years ago, with aspirations of becoming an artist. His father told him that he should go hear from an actual artist, S\u00e1enz, who was speaking at the Barnes and Noble on Sunland Park Drive.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He said he resisted, but his father eventually \u201cguilted\u201d him into going. The event changed Ra\u00fal\u2019s life.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was immediately inspired by his presentation, by the way he spoke of the characters he had created, and everything that went into the making of this novel,\u201d Ra\u00fal said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was writing about where we lived, and that to me was something that I hadn\u2019t really ever tried to do in my work. And now I\u2019ve spent the past like 20, 25 years of my career basically creating books and works of art that are inspired by my border experience,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"Youtube<\/p>\n

Along with the lifelong friends he often praised and thanked \u2013 as well as his Yorkshire Terriers Chuy and Rain \u2013 S\u00e1enz loved El Paso.\u00a0<\/p>\n

His TEDx Talk, titled \u201cI lost myself and found myself in the city that I love,\u201d centered on identity, belonging and place.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In El Paso, he said, he found he belonged.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI was always looking for a road that would take me to a place where I could rest from the chronic disquiet that raced incisively from my head to my heart and back again,\u201d S\u00e1enz said in his talk. When he was honored for his work, he said, El Paso was also honored.<\/p>\n

Susie Byrd, whose parents published numerous S\u00e1enz books at Cinco Puntos Press, said El Paso was the primary character in his work.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe just loves this place so much, and that\u2019s so present in everything he writes about. He loves the people, he loves the geography, he loves the complexity, and he wants everybody else to love it,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd he\u2019s determined to make you see what\u2019s beautiful and important about this place.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article was originally published on El Paso Matters<\/a> here<\/a>.<\/p>\n