Benjamín Alire Sáenz Biography

Benjamín Alire Sáenz studied at St. Thomas Seminary in Denver Colorado the University of Louvain in Louvain Belgium the University of Texas at El Paso the University of Iowa and Stanford University where he was a Wallace E. Stegner fellow in poety. While at Stanford he also pursued his doctoral studies in American Literature. He has studied philosophy art history theology creative writing and literary studies with a focus on twentieth century American poetry.
His first collection of poetry Calendar of Dust was honored with an American Book Award in 1991. The following year he was awarded a Lannan Literary Poetry Fellowship. His second collection of poems Dark and Perfect Angels won a Southwest Book Award from the Border Librarians Association. In 2002 his third book of poems Elegies in Blue was published by Cinco Puntos Press and was nominated for an L.A. Times Book Prize. Copper Canyon press published his fourth book of poems Dreaming the End of War in the Spring of 2006. His latest book of poems The Book of What Remains was published in 2010 by Copper Canyon Press. His poetry has been widely anthologized and he has ben included in Twentieth Century American Poetry edited by Dana Gioia.
His first book of fiction a collection of short stories Flowers for the Broken was published in 1992. His critically acclaimed first novel Carry Me Like Water was published in 1995 by Hyperion and was also awarded a Southwest Book Award. The novel was re-issued by HarperCollins and was awarded a Latino Literary Award for Best Novel in 2006. Carry Me Like Water has appeared in translation in Dutch and in German. His second novel The House of Forgetting was published two years later and has been translated into German and French. In 2006 his third novel In Pefect Light was published by Rayo/HarperCollins and was simultaneously published in a Spanish language translation En el tieimpo del la luz. His fourth novel Names on a Map was published by HarperPerennial in 2008.

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