Benjamin Alire Sáenz





Benjamin Alire Sáenz

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Benjamin Alire Sáenz (born 16 August 1954) is an award-winning American poet, novelist and writer of children's books.

He was born at Old Picacho, New Mexico, the fourth of seven children, and was raised on a small farm near Mesilla, New Mexico. He graduated from Las Cruces High School in 1972. That fall, he entered St. Thomas Seminary in Denver, Colorado where he received a B.A. degree in Humanities and Philosophy in 1977. He studied Theology at the University of Louvain in Leuven, Belgium from 1977 to 1981. He was a priest for a few years in El Paso, Texas before leaving the order.

In 1985, he returned to school, and studied English and Creative Writing at the University of Texas at El Paso where he earned an M.A. degree in Creative Writing...more


Average rating: 4.03 · 1,465 ratings · 394 reviews · 20 distinct works
Last Night I Sang to the Mo...
4.17 of 5 stars 4.17 avg rating — 541 ratings — published 2009 — 7 editions
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Sammy and Juliana in Hollywood
3.95 of 5 stars 3.95 avg rating — 232 ratings — published 2004 — 8 editions
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Aristotle and Dante Discove...
4.27 of 5 stars 4.27 avg rating — 121 ratings — published 2012 — 2 editions
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He Forgot to Say Goodbye
3.78 of 5 stars 3.78 avg rating — 116 ratings — published 1998 — 6 editions
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Carry Me Like Water
4.0 of 5 stars 4.00 avg rating — 111 ratings8 editions
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Names on a Map
3.73 of 5 stars 3.73 avg rating — 85 ratings — published 2008 — 4 editions
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In Perfect Light
4.22 of 5 stars 4.22 avg rating — 65 ratings — published 2005 — 9 editions
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The House of Forgetting
3.6 of 5 stars 3.60 avg rating — 52 ratings — published 1997 — 3 editions
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Elegies in Blue
4.04 of 5 stars 4.04 avg rating — 26 ratings — published 2002
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The Book of What Remains
4.3 of 5 stars 4.30 avg rating — 23 ratings — published 2010
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More books by Benjamin Alire Sáenz…

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“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” and 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.”

I keep seeing a newspaper being tossed around in the wind. And then a strong gust comes along and the newspaper is thrown against a barbed wire fence and it gets ripped to shreds in an instant. That’s how I feel. I think God is the wind. 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 “sad.” I don’t like God very much. Apparently, he doesn’t like me very much either.”
Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Last Night I Sang to the Monster

“I don't like remembering.
Remembering makes me feel things.
I don't like to feel things.

I'm thinking I could spend the rest of my life becoming an expert at forgetting”
Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Last Night I Sang to the Monster

“All my friends thought I was a very happy human being. Because that's how I acted- like a really happy human being. But all that pretending made me tired. If I acted the way I felt, then I doubt my friends would have really hung out with me. So the pretending wasn't all bad. The pretending made me less lonely. But in another was, it made me more lonely because I felt like a fraud. I've always felt like a fake human being.”
Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Last Night I Sang to the Monster

Polls

Which book should we read March 2012? Books should be pubbed between 1/1/12 and 2/29/12. While write-ins are welcome, please, please, please check the list first!

 
  7 votes 25.0%

 
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  5 votes 17.9%

 
  3 votes 10.7%

 
  2 votes 7.1%

 
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  1 vote 3.6%

 
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  0 votes 0.0%

28 total votes
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