Benjamin Alire Sáenz, PEN/Faulkner Winner and YA Novelist, Dies at 71

Benjamin Alire Sáenz, the El Paso poet and novelist who became the first Latino writer to win the PEN/Faulkner Award and whose young-adult novel Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe reached a mass readership, died on the night of July 28, 2026, after a long illness. He was 71.

El Paso Matters reported the death that day. The Associated Press, citing a spokesperson for Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing, confirmed that he had died in El Paso. Two books he finished are still on the autumn list.

From Cinco Puntos to a Big Five list

Sáenz was born on August 16, 1954, in Old Picacho, New Mexico, a farming community near Las Cruces, the fourth of seven children. He entered St. Thomas Seminary in Denver in 1972, earned a bachelor's degree in humanities and philosophy, studied theology at the University of Louvain in Belgium, and served as a Catholic priest in El Paso for three years before leaving the order. He later earned a master's in creative writing from the University of Texas at El Paso, joined the faculty, chaired the department, and retired in 2016.

His early books came from the border's own presses as much as from New York. The poetry collection Calendar of Dust won an American Book Award. The novel Carry Me Like Water won the Southwest Book Award. Cinco Puntos Press, the El Paso house founded by Lee and Bobby Byrd in 1985, published the young-adult novel Sammy and Juliana in Hollywood in 2006 and, in 2012, the story collection Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club.

That collection, set in El Paso, Ciudad Juárez, and the bar at the foot of the international bridge, won the 2013 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. El Paso Matters reported that the win made him the first Latino writer, and only the second gay writer, to receive it, and that the book also won a Lambda Literary Award and a Stonewall Honor. Lee Byrd told El Paso Matters that Latino writers "were not at a premium" when Cinco Puntos started publishing them, and that as the books took off, larger houses wanted them. She said Sáenz moved to Simon & Schuster when Cinco Puntos was not large enough to get the work to a mass audience.

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, published by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers in 2012, is the book that made the move visible. Set in El Paso in the 1980s, it follows two Mexican-American teenagers who become friends and fall in love. A sequel, Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World, followed in 2021. El Paso Matters reported that it reached No. 1 on the New York Times Best Sellers list for young-adult novels. An independent film of the first novel was released in 2023.

The books were also banned in places even as they won prizes. The Associated Press noted a young-adult novel that drew acclaim from readers and reviewers and condemnation from censors.

Two books still scheduled for September

Sáenz kept writing through the illness. When the World Was Happy, about teenage twin sisters rebuilding their lives after a school shooting in El Paso, is due on September 29 from Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers. On the same day HarperCollins will publish Grandma Fina's Wonderful Umbrella, illustrated by Raúl the Third, with color by Elaine Bay. El Paso Matters reported that an earlier edition had been published by Cinco Puntos with illustrations by Geronimo Garcia. In February, Sáenz wrote on Instagram: "This book is about what remains after everything changes. I hope it finds the people who need it."

Justin Chanda, senior vice president and publisher of Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, told Shelf Awareness: "There is no book I am prouder to have published than Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe. Knowing and working with Ben was an absolute honor. We've lost a luminary, but his books will continue to change lives for generations."

Kendra Levin, vice president and editorial director, said: "Benjamin had a remarkable gift for making you fall in love with the characters he wrote about, because he saw them as real people with a full and rich humanity. His tremendous affection and admiration for young people shone through in everything he wrote for teens, and radiated from him in conversation, too. He was a true poet who was constantly challenging himself in his work and, even with his last works and while in poor health, he was still pushing himself to do his best writing. We won't see another one like him again."

Daniel Chacón, chair of creative writing at the University of Texas at El Paso, told El Paso Matters: "What 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. That's what he did best."

At Sáenz's request, the El Paso Community Foundation set up the Benjamin Alire Sáenz Literary Fund to support a book festival in El Paso and authors in the region.

Image: Benjamin Alire Sáenz at the Texas Book Festival, Austin, November 5, 2016. Photo by Larry D. Moore, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY 4.0. Placed on a blurred extension of the same photo.

Sources

• El Paso Matters: Renowned El Paso author, artist Benjamin Alire Sáenz dies at 71 (July 28, 2026)
• The Associated Press, via PBS News: Beloved author Benjamin Alire Sáenz, first Latino PEN/Faulkner winner, dies at 71 (August 3, 2026)
• Shelf Awareness: Obituary Note: Benjamin Alire Sáenz (July 31, 2026)