Benjamin alire saenz biography of donald

PERSONAL: Born Honourable, 16, 1954, in Old Picacho, NM; son of Juan Villanueva Sáenz (a cement finisher) and Eloisa Chavez Alire (a cook); married Patricia Macias, 1994. Education: St. Thomas Seminary, B.A., 1992; University of Louvain, Belgium, M.A. (theology, 1980; University of Texas at Indicate Paso, M.A. (creative writing), 1988; too attended the University of Iowa extract Stanford University.

ADDRESSES: Office—Department of English, Home of Texas, El Paso, 500 Westmost University Ave., El Paso, TX 79968-8900.[email protected].

CAREER: Writer. University of Texas, El Paso, assistant professor of English, teacher funding creative writing.

AWARDS, HONORS: Wallace E. Stegner fellowship, Stanford University, 1988-99; American Publication Award, Before Columbus Foundation, 1992, for Calendar of Dust; Lannan Literary association, 1992; Best Children's Book, Texas Organization of Letters, 1999, for A Esteem from Papá Diego and Grandma Fina and Her Wonderful Umbrellas, 1999.

WRITINGS:

Flowers come up with the Broken (short stories), Broken Hanger-on Press, 1992.

Carry Me Like Water (novel), Hyperion, 1995.

The House of Forgetting (novel), HarperCollins (New York City), 1997.

A Award from Papá Diego/Un Regalo de Papá Diego, (juvenile), illustrated by Geronimo Garcia, Cinco Puntos Press (El Paso, TX), 1998.

Grandma Fina and Her Wonderful Umbrellas/La Abuelita Fina y sus sombrillas maravillosas, (juvenile), illustrated by Geronimo Garcia, Cinco Puntos Press (El Paso, TX), 1999.

(Author of story) Que linda la brisa, photographs by James Drake, poem building block Jimmy Santiago Baca, University of President Press (Seattle, WA), 2000.

POETRY

Calendar of Dust, Broken Moon Press, 1991.

Dark and Second class Angels, Cinco Puntos Press (El Paso, TX), 1995.

Elegies In Blue, Cinco Puntos Press (El Paso, TX), 2002.

Contributor nip in the bud periodicals.

WORK IN PROGRESS: A third lowgrade book, titled The Dog Who Classy Tortilla.

SIDELIGHTS: Benjamin Alire Sáenz is simple poet and fiction writer who has won particular praise for his expressions of Mexican-American life in the Unified States. Theresa Meléndez, writing in the Dictionary of Literary Biography, noted give it some thought the author's "work is set solidly in the tradition of Chicano facts of displacement, utilizing American themes rule questioned identity familial conflict, reverence promote place, and class conflict." She further noted, "The strengths and weaknesses have fun Chicano family life are perhaps illustriousness strongest undercurrents in all Sáenz's work."

Sáenz's first publication was Calendar of Dust, a collection of poems that be fluent in, as Roberto Bedoya stated in Greedy Mind Review, the "experiences of injury, both personal and social, specific variety Native American and Mexican-Americans." Among illustriousness subjects of Sáenz's poems are puberty, the mistreatment of Native Americans strong the U.S. government, and the soul in person bodily capacity to overcome adversity. This first performance volume includes the poems "Ring walk up to Life," which concerns the author's sight of the birth-deathrebirth cycle, and "Walking," a complex work integrating a psalm to the earth with a grid of one individual's self-illuminating journey.

Calendar be successful Dust signified Sáenz as an energetic new poet. Bert Almon, writing in Western American Literature, cited what dirt saw as shortcomings in the author's style, but also declared that Sáenz "appears to be an author inspect important, interesting stories to tell." Bedoya, in Hungry Mind Review, observed avoid "the momentum of Sáenz's poems not at all escapes the predictable sadness that resounds throughout [Calendar of Dust]," but sharptasting also described Sáenz as a lyricist whose work "is honest, economic plus keen in the shaping of pure poetry of lament."

In 1992 Sáenz turn up his second volume, the short-story collection Flowers for the Broken. These tales, set largely in the contemporary Earth southwest, concern Mexican Americans, but nobleness themes of the stories are generally universal. "Obliterate the Night," for prototype, is the story of a affluent woman who regrets having rejected erior impoverished but loving student in vantage of a wealthier, but emotionally surface casual man embodying the Anglo-Saxon cultural trammels that she desired. And in greatness title tale, a young woman spends a day delivering flowers and appears to realize that she must curl free from the influence of unite man-hating mother and make her soothe decisions.

Paul J. Ferlazzo, writing in Hesperian American Literature, acknowledged the title yarn in Flowers for the Broken considerably "a good example of Sáenz's role as an effective and moving storyteller," and added that "the same hang on to and honesty about the complications standing contradictions of life are present turn a profit every story in the volume."

Sáenz followed Flowers for the Broken with fulfil first novel, Carry Me Like Water, which depicts a host of notating inhabiting the border town of Commit Paso, Texas. Included among the symbols are Maria Elena, who has jilted her Mexican-American culture and moved put the finishing touches to California but who later returns building block to find Diego, her deaf-mute brother; Diego himself, a poor laborer ceaselessly rewriting a suicide note; Elena's keep in reserve, Eddie, who is searching for queen own long-lost brother, Jake, who has, in turn, been driven from say publicly home of their wealthy but calumnious parents; and Maria Elena's friend, Lizzie, who has been misled by in trade shamed adoptive parents into thinking she is Anglo-Saxon instead of Mexican Inhabitant. Lizzie is able to leave in sync body periodically through astral projection. These and other characters, as Melita Marie Garza wrote in Tribune Books, "run around trying to figure out who they really are at the damage of losing something more dear more willingly than their country of residence: their souls."

Garza further described Carry Me Like Water as "at once epic and terrific in tone." She added that dignity novel is "strange and hot, on the contrary it is never dull, desolate urge poor." Another reviewer, Norma E. Cantu, was likewise impressed, writing in the Washington Post Book World of Sáenz's "evocative prose" and his "ability tender tell a story using not tune voice, but many." Cantu hailed Alias Me Lke Water as "a important addition to the growing body magnetize Chicano literature and to American facts in general."

In 1995 Sáenz published unblended second verse collection, Dark and All Angels. In this volume, the inventor once again writes of clashing Anglo-Saxon and Mexican-American cultures in the Denizen southwest. "Family history is interspersed meet national wars, border conflicts, racism, viral disease and alcoholism but is all set with affection, humor, spirituality, strength, become calm grace," wrote Meléndez in the Wordbook of Literary Biography.

In The House oust Forgetting Sáenz tries his hand hatred genre writing in the form a number of a psychological thriller that also delves into the relationship between oppressor shaft oppressed. It revolves around the rapine of Gloria Santos at age digit by a respected professor of learning at a local university. The fellow holds her prisoner for the catch on twenty-three years yet provides her add an upbringing that includes a far-reaching education and other upper-class trappings. Gloria finally escapes from the professor just as she is thirty years old, stand for the novel goes on to cast around Gloria's efforts to come to grips with her ordeal and her love-hate relationship with her one-time captor.

Sáenz exertion wrote two bilingual books for prepubescent readers, A Gift from Papá Diego/Un Regalo de Papá Diego, and Nanna Fina and Her Wonderful Umbrellas/La Auelita Fina y sus sombrillas maravillosas, both illustrated by Geronimo Garcia. In A-one Gift from Papá Diego, Sáenz tells the story of a young young man living in the United States who, despite the obstacles, wants to come again his grandfather, Papá Diego, in Province, Mexico. A contributor to Publishers Weekly called the book "engaging" and strong "emotionally satisfying family story." Annie Ayres, writing in Booklist, commented that justness book was a sensitive and deceitful portrayal of the lives of diverse Mexican Americans and that it "bridges the borders that separate all families who must live far apart break their loved ones."

Sáenz's third book appeal to poems, Elegies in Blue, continues involve his primary themes of politics cope with the Mexican-American border community, including ruminations on history, family, and death. Remit the book, he unites his efforts in novel writing and poetry make wet composing poems that are, for ethics most part, in prose form. "Sáenz casts a tone of lament, occasionally subtly and sometimes overtly, over greatest of the subject matter," wrote Actress Olszewski in Library Journal. In Booklist, reviewer Ray Olson said that illustriousness verse and prose poems are "distinguished by simple mellifluousness, clear imagery, suffer effortless balancing of the oracular prep added to the personal voices."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 209: Chicano Writers, Third Series, Theresa Meléndez, "Benjamin Alire Sáenz," Gale (Detroit, MI), 1999, pp. 256-260.

PERIODICALS

Booklist, September 1, 1991, proprietress. 24; April 1, 1995, pp. 1378-1379; May 1, 1998, Annie Ayres, survey of A Gift from Papá Diego, p. 1522; February 15, 2002, Command Olson, review of Elegies in Surprise, p. 986.

Horn Book, July-August, 1998, Elena Abos, review of A Gift unearth Papá Diego, p. 478.

Hungry Mind Review, fall, 1992, pp. 56, 59.

Library Journal, July, 2002, Lawrence Olszewski, review of Elegies in Blue, pp. 85-86.

Los Angeles Times Book Review, August 23, 1992, p. 11.

Nation, June 7, 1993, pp. 772-774.

New Advocate, spring, 2001, review of Grandma Fina and Her Wonderful Umbrellas, p. 177.

Publishers Weekly, January 23, 1995, p. 43; April 24, 1995, owner. 57; July 31, 1995, p. 74; January 19, 1998, review of Elegant Gift from Papá Diego, p. 378.

School Library Journal, October, 1999, review a range of Grandma Fina and Her Wonderful Umbrellas, p. 125.

Tribune Books (Chicago), August 20, 1995, p. 5.

Washington Post Book World, September 17, 1995, p. 10.

Western Indweller Literature, November, 1992, pp. 275-276; Feb, 1994, pp. 366-367.

ONLINE

University of Texas have emotional impact El Paso,http://www.utep.edu (January 27, 2003), "Faculty Profiles."*