Most Popular Books by Benjamin Alire Saenz

From award-winning poet Benjamin Alire Sáenz comes In Perfect Light, a haunting novel depicting the cruelties of cultural displacement and the resilience of those who are left in its aftermath. In Perfect Light is the story of two strong-willed people who are forever altered by a single tragedy. After Andés Segovia''s parents are killed in a car accident when he is still a young boy, his older brother decides to steal the family away to Juárez, Mexico. That decision, made with the best intentions, sets into motion the unraveling of an American family. Years later, his family destroyed, Andés is left to make sense of the chaos -- but he is ill-equipped to make sense of his life. He begins a dark journey toward self-destruction, his talent and brilliance brought down by the weight of a burden too frightening and maddening to bear alone. The manifestation of this frustration is a singular rage that finds an outlet in a dark and seedy El Paso bar -- leading him improbably to Grace Delgado. Recently confronted with her own sense of isolation and mortality, Grace is an unlikely angel, a therapist who agrees to treat Andés after he is arrested in the United States. The two are suspicious of each other, yet they slowly arrive at a tentative working relationship that allows each of them to examine his and her own fragile and damaged past. Andés begins to confront what lies behind his own violence, and Grace begins to understand how she has contributed to her own self-exile and isolation. What begins as an intriguing favor to a friend becomes Grace''s lifeline -- even as secrets surrounding the death of Andés'' parents threaten to strain the connection irreparably. With the urgent, unflinching vision of a true storyteller and the precise, arresting language of a poet, Sáenz''s In Perfect Light bears witness to the cruelty of circumstance and, more than offering escape, the novel offers the possibility of salvation.

"Sáenz'' poetic narrative will captivate readers from the first sentence to the last paragraph of this beautifully written novel. . . . It is also a celebration of life and a song of hope in celebration of family and friendship, one that will resonate loud and long with teens."—Kirkus Reviews "…There is never a question of either Sáenz’s own extraordinary capacity for caring and compassion or the authenticity of the experiences he records in this heartfelt account of healing and hope."—Booklist "Offering insight into [an adolescent''s] addiction, dysfunction and mental illness, particularly in the wake of traumatic events, Sáenz''s artful rendition of the healing process will not soon be forgotten."—Publishers Weekly "Sáenz weaves together [18-year-old] Zach''s past, present, and changing disposition toward his future with stylistic grace and emotional insight. This is a powerful and edifying look into both a tortured psyche and the methods by which it can be healed."—School Library Journal Zach is eighteen. He is bright and articulate. He''s also an alcoholic and in rehab instead of high school, but he doesn''t remember how he got there. He''s not sure he wants to remember. Something bad must have happened. Something really, really bad. Remembering sucks and being alive—well, what''s up with that? I have it in my head that when we''re born, God writes things down on our hearts. See, on some people''s hearts he writes Happy and on some people''s hearts he writes Sad and on some people''s hearts he writes Crazy on some people''s hearts he writes Genius and on some people''s hearts he writes Angry and on some people''s hearts he writes Winner and on some people''s hearts he writes Loser. It''s all like a game to him. Him. God. And it''s all pretty much random. He takes out his pen and starts writing on our blank hearts. When it came to my turn, he wrote. I don''t like God very much. Apparently he doesn''t like me very much either. Sad Benjamin Alire Sáenz is a prolific novelist, poet, and author of children''s books. Sammy and Juliana in Hollywood, his first novel for young adults, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and a Young Adult Library Services Association Top Ten Books for Young Adults pick in 2005.

The “Hollywood” where Sammy Santos and Juliana Ríos live is not the West Coast one, the one with all the glitz and glitter. This Hollywood is a tough barrio at the edge of a small town in southern New Mexico. Sammy and this friends—members of the 1969 high school graduating class—face a world of racism, dress codes, war in Vietnam and barrio violence. In the summer before his senior year begins, Sammy falls in love with Juliana, a girl whose tough veneer disguises a world of hurt. By summer’s end, Juliana is dead. Sammy grieves, and in his grief, the memory of Juliana becomes his guide through this difficult year. Sammy is a smart kid, but he’s angry. He’s angry about Juliana’s death, he’s angry about the poverty his father and his sister must endure, he’s angry at his high school and its thinly disguised gringo racism, and he’s angry he might not be able to go to college. Benjamin Alire Sáenz, evoking the bittersweet ambience found in such novels as McMurtry’s The Last Picture Show, captures the essence of what it meant to grow up Chicano in small-town America in the late 1960s. Benjamin Alire Sáenz—novelist, poet, essayist and writer of children’s books—is at the forefront of the emerging Latino literatures. He has received both the Wallace Stegner Fellowship and the Lannan Fellowship, and is a recipient of the American Book Award. Born Mexican-American Catholic in the rural community of Picacho, New Mexico, he now teaches at the University of Texas at El Paso, and considers himself a “fronterizo,” a person of the border.

Winner of the 2013 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction! Benjamin Alire Sáenz''s stories reveal how all borders--real, imagined, sexual, human, the line between dark and light, addict and straight--entangle those who live on either side. Take, for instance, the Kentucky Club on Avenida Juárez two blocks south of the Rio Grande. It''s a touchstone for each of Sáenz''s stories. His characters walk by, they might go in for a drink or to score, or they might just stay there for a while and let their story be told. Sáenz knows that the Kentucky Club, like special watering holes in all cities, is the contrary to borders. It welcomes Spanish and English, Mexicans and gringos, poor and rich, gay and straight, drug addicts and drunks, laughter and sadness, and even despair. It''s a place of rich history and good drinks and cold beer and a long polished mahogany bar. Some days it smells like piss. "I''m going home to the other side." That''s a strange statement, but you hear it all the time at the Kentucky Club. Benjamin Alire Sáenz is a highly regarded writer of fiction, poetry, and children''s literature. Like these stories, his writing crosses borders and lands in our collective psyche. Poets & Writers Magazine named him one of the fifty most inspiring writers in the world. He''s been a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and PEN Center''s prestigious award for young adult fiction. Sáenz is the chair of the creative writing department of University of Texas at El Paso.

A “mesmerizing, poetic exploration of family, friendship, love and loss” from the acclaimed author of Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe. (New York Times Book Review) Sal used to know his place with his adoptive gay father, their loving Mexican American family, and his best friend, Samantha. But it’s senior year, and suddenly Sal is throwing punches, questioning everything, and realizing he no longer knows himself. If Sal’s not who he thought he was, who is he? This humor-infused, warmly humane look at universal questions of belonging is a triumph.

From the author of the highly acclaimed literary novel Carry Me Like Water comes a stunning, dramatic psychological thriller that delivers on every level and reaffirms Luis Arrea''s claim that Benjamin Sàenz is "writer with greatness in him." In The House of Forgetting, seven-year-old Gloria Santos is taken by Thomas Blacker from the barrio of El Paso, Texas, to Chicago. There, in the home of the respected writer and academic, Gloria is raised to be refined, educated young woman with an appreciation of literature, music, and fine cooking. For more than twenty years she is confined to Blacker''s house and only occasionally allowed in the garden he so meticulously keeps. She becomes, it seems, like his flowers--lovingly tended, but utterly at his mercy. As she reaches adulthood, Gloria grows more and more aware that her situation is in unacceptable, and she finds herself confronting her future and the man who has shaped her past. She struggles to distinguish between love and obsession, between gratitude and obligation, and, ultimately, between betrayal and self-preservation. Naive, frightened, and caught between a world she hates and one she does not know, Gloria must summon all her courage and moral strength or risk losing the life she longs for. In the lyrical prose for which he is known, Benjamin Sàenz offers a haunting psychological drama that examines one woman''s search for her identity and explores what it means to have freedom. The House of Forgetting is a riveting tale of abduction, lost innocence, and revenge--a page-turner in the truest sense, a novel that longers in memory, and one that establishes Benjamin Sàenz as one of the most versatile, insightful writers working today.

This immensely moving novel confronts divisions of race, gender, and class, fusing together the stories of people who come to recognize one another from former lives they didn''t know existed -- or that they tried to forget. Diego, a deaf-mute, is barely surviving on the border in El Paso, Texas. Diego''s sister, Helen, who lives with her husband in the posh suburbs of San Francisco, long ago abandoned both her brother and her El Paso roots. Helen''s best friend, Lizzie, a nurse in an AIDS ward, begins to uncover her own buried past after a mystical encounter with a patient. With Carry Me Like Water, Benjamin Alire SÁenz unfolds a beautiful story about hope and forgiveness, unexpected reunions, an expanded definition of family, and, ultimately, what happens when the disparate worlds of pain and privilege collide.

As two loners start spending time together, they discover that they share a special friendship - the kind that changes lives and lasts a lifetime. And it is through this friendship that Ari and Dante will learn the most important truths about themsel

The Espejo family of El Paso, Texas, is like so many others in America in 1967, trying to make sense of a rapidly escalating war they feel does not concern them. But when the eldest son, Gustavo, a complex and errant rebel, receives a certified letter ordering him to report to basic training, he chooses to flee instead to Mexico. Retreating back to the land of his grandfather—a foreign country to which he is no longer culturally connected—Gustavo sets into motion a series of events that will have catastrophic consequences on the fragile bonds holding the family together. Told with raw power and searing bluntness, and filled with important themes as immediate as today’s headlines, Names on a Map is arguably the most important work to date of a major American literary artist.

Tras la muerte de sus padres en un accidente automovilístico, el joven Andrés Segovia y sus hermanos se ven obligados a mudarse a México con el resto de la familia. Esta decisión, a pesar de haber sido tomada con la mejor de las intenciones, es un error que trastornará para siempre la vida de Andrés. Después de varios años de vivir en México luchando contra el estigma de ser un hispano nacido en Estados Unidos y sintiéndose siempre fuera de lugar, Andrés decide regresar a los Estados Unidos. Las autoridades lo detienen un día y lo ponen bajo la tutela de una terapeuta llamada Grace Delgado, una viuda que vive en El Paso. Su relación se convierte pronto en una gran amistad, y justo cuando comienzan a florecer y a disfrutar de su vida juntos, se descubren secretos inconcebibles acerca de la muerte de los padres de Andrés . . . secretos que bien pueden destruir la posibilidad que tienen de ser felices.

"The story''s rhythmic, repetitive structure makes it an excellent read-aloud. . . . Meanwhile, [Esau Andrade] Valencia''s bright oil paintings evoke the joy of dreams and imagination. . . . Children of all backgrounds will enjoy it."—School Library Journal Ninety-two-year-old Octavio Rivera is a beautiful dreamer. And lately he has been visited by some very interesting dreams—dreams about piñatas that spill their treasures before him, revealing kissing turtles, winged pigs, hitchhiking armadillos and many more fantastic things! Octavio doesn’t tell anyone about his dreams except his young granddaughter Regina because she alone understands beautiful and fantastic dreams. On the ninth afternoon Octavio prepares for his siesta hoping to be blessed with one last lovely dream. That afternoon he dreams of a sky full of sweet and perfect hummingbirds calling his name over and over again… Like Margaret Wild’s marvelous book Old Pig, A Perfect Season for Dreaming unfolds the sweet possibilities in relationships between the very old and the very young. Benjamin Alire Sáenzu00ad—novelist, poet, essayist and writer of children’s books—is at the forefront of the emerging Latino literatures. He has received the Wallace Stegner Fellowship and the Lannan Fellowship and an American Book Award. He teaches at the University of Texas at El Paso, and considers himself a fronterizo, a person of the border. Esau Andrade Valencia, born in Mexico, comes from a family of folk artists. Although still young, he is increasingly recognized as a master artist in the tradition of the great painters such as Diego Rivera and Rufino Tamayo, in whose footsteps he follows. Esau''s paintings are included in the collection of The Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach as well as in the Downey Museum of Art in California.

UM LIVRO DE CULTO SOBRE FAMÍLIA, AMIZADE E PRIMEIRO AMOR. Foi naquele verão, naquele dia, junto à piscina. O instante em que Aristóteles e Dante se conhecem vai mudar as suas vidas. Naquele momento, sentem que não têm nada - mesmo nada - em comum. Mas enquanto os dias de calor se sucedem, este dois espíritos solitários encontram-se e nasce uma amizade especial, das que mudam as nossas vidas e ficam para sempre. Ari não tem jeito com as palavras e duvida bastante de si próprio. Dante é muito articulado e confiante. Ari perde-se em pensamentos sobre o irmão mais velho, que está preso. Dante adora poesia e arte. Ari levantou um muro entre ele e o mundo - Dante é a pessoa que o vai, devagar, fazer cair. São cúmplices nos risos, sonham juntos, partilham livros. E descobrem-se um ao outro, a si próprios, enquanto usam a amizade e o amor para... desvendar os segredos do Universo.

Eles apaixonaram-se e… mergulham na empolgante descoberta do que é escolher o outro… todos os dias. Quando deixámos Aristóteles e Dante, a paixão tomava conta dos dois. Mas que mundo é esse onde o amor de ambos parece não poder acontecer? Aristóteles e Dante estão no 12º ano, em escolas diferentes. Ari passou os anos anteriores a tentar ser invisível. Mas, desde que Dante apareceu na sua vida, algo mudou: subitamente, enfrenta os bullies e quer que a sua voz seja ouvida. Como sempre, desde o começo, o sonhador e espirituoso Dante tanto o irrita quanto o enche de um desejo incontrolável. Ambos querem traçar um caminho juntos, mesmo que o mundo que os rodeia insista em fazê-los sentir que não têm lugar em parte alguma. Porém, Ari sofre uma perda brutal, e é a partir desse momento que terá de lutar, mais do que nunca, por encontrar a sua verdade, a sua felicidade - por se encontrar a si mesmo. Quando já descobrimos um dos maiores segredos do universo - a paixão -, o mergulho no mundo é a maior prova pela qual o amor tem de passar.

Après Aristote et Dante, découvrez le nouveau roman de Benjamin Alire Saenz ! Sal mène une vie paisible et sans histoires, dans une famille moitié mexicaine, moitié américaine. Mais tout bascule le jour de sa rentrée en terminale. Pour défendre l''honneur de son père adoptif, il sort les poings et frappe. Surprise, colère, satisfaction, culpabilité se bousculent dans la tête du jeune homme, qui se met à douter de tout, même de sa propre identité. Alors, avec l''aide de Sam, sa meilleure amie, et de son père, Sal va tenter de comprendre l''insaisissable logique de sa vie.

Aristotel e un adolescent răzvrătit, cu un frate în închisoare. Dante e un băiat sarcastic și curios, cu un fel neobișnuit de a privi lumea. Când se întâlnesc la piscină, cei doi nu par să aibă nimic în comun. Dar pe măsură ce încep să petreacă mai mult timp împreună, descoperă că prietenia dintre ei e specială – una dintre acelea care te schimbă profund și durează o viață. Și tocmai prin această prietenie, Ari și Dante vor afla adevărurile cele mai importante despre ei înșiși și despre ce fel de oameni vor să devină. “O explorare sinceră și tandră a identității și sexualității, și o dovadă incontestabilă că dragostea – fie ea romantică sau familială – trebuie să fie liberă, deschisă și lipsită de constrângeri.“ - Publishers Weekly “Un roman emoționant, care demonstrează talentul autorului de a surprinde complexitățile relațiilor umane.“ - School Library Journal “Sáenz scrie, spre finalul cărții, că «A fi atent cu oamenii și cuvintele e ceva rar și minunat». Și chiar asta face: e grijuliu cu personajele lui, dându-le timp să-și găsească locul în lume și să se găsească unul pe celălalt.“ - Booklist „Asta era ce nu era în regulă cu mine. În tot acest timp, încercasem să-mi dau seama de secretele universului, secretele trupului meu, ale inimii mele. Toate răspunsurile fuseseră mereu atât de aproape, dar eu luptasem mereu împotriva lor, fără ca măcar s-o știu. Din clipa în care îl cunoscusem pe Dante, mă îndrăgostisem de el. Pur și simplu nu mi-am îngăduit să-mi dau seama de asta, să gândesc asta, să simt asta. Taică-meu avea dreptate. Și era adevărat ce spusese maică-mea. Cu toții avem războaiele noastre personale.“