Bestselling Author Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Who Famously Penned “Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe”, Dies at 71
Bestselling Author Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Who Famously Penned “Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe”, Dies at 71
Kimberlee Speakman, Lizz SchumerWed, July 29, 2026 at 7:52 PM UTC
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Benjamin Alire Saenz attends 2014 Festival Delle Letterature in Rome, Italy.Credit: Elisabetta A. Villa/Getty -
Bestselling Texas author Benjamin Alire Sáenz died on Tuesday, July 28, his publisher confirmed to PEOPLE
Sáenz is best known for penning Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, Calendar of Dust and Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club
His final novel, When the World Was Happy, will be released posthumously on Sept. 29
Author Benjamin Alire Sáenz, best known for writing Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe and Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club, has died.
Sáenz’s publisher Simon & Schuster confirmed to PEOPLE that the Mexican-American author died on Tuesday, July 28. According to El Paso Matters, Sáenz had a “lengthy illness” prior to his death.
His death comes just months before he was set to publish his new forthcoming novel, When the World Was Happy, which follows twins whose worlds are turned upside down after a school shooting. The story was based on his own experiences with grief after losing his niece in a bowling-alley shooting.
In an emotional author’s note for the book, he opened up about his calling as a writer after publishing his first book in 1991 and how it has shaped and enhanced his life over the last few decades.
Benjamin Alire Saenz sits in the spot where his very successful novel ‘Aristotle and Dante’ was written.Credit: Mark Lambie / El Paso Times via Imagn
“I’ve always believed that I don’t choose the books that I write. They choose me,” he wrote. “My work has always been a poetry of witness. Even my fiction novels are responses to the times I lived in and the life I have lived.”
“I want to write about things that matter,” he continued. “I want to write to move people. Writing taught me to love people. So writing [When the World Was Happy] is how I love.”
Benjamin Alire Saenz attends the 2023 Texas Medal of Arts Awards at the Long Center for the Performing Arts in Austin, Texas.Credit: Gary Miller/Getty
Sáenz was 37 years old when he published his first book, a poetry collection called Calendar of Dust which won an American Book Award. Prior to that breakout, he had cultivated many experiences that helped shape the author he became.
He was born the fourth of seven children on Aug. 16, 1954 in Old Picacho, New Mexico and raised on a small farm. Financial struggles, including losing their property, and led him to working odd jobs to supplement his family’s income, according to the Academy of American Poets (AAP). He graduated high school and received a degree at the St. Thomas Seminary in Denver before studying theology at the University of Louvain in Belgium.
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He then moved to El Paso, Texas, to serve as a priest, but found himself constantly drawn back to writing. He eventually left priesthood in 1985 and earned a master’s degree in creative writing from the University of Texas at El Paso in 1987, per El Paso Matters. He taught creative writing and served as chair of the department until his retirement from the university in 2016.
In the early 1990s, Sáenz married Patricia Macias. They divorced after more than a decade, and Saenz came out as gay after battling addiction, he told El Paso Inc. Magazine in 2021.
Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, he published several works including the critically acclaimed adult 1995 novel Carry Me Like Water and 2006’s Sammy and Juliana in Hollywood. He also continued to publish poetry collections including Dark and Perfect Angels, Dreaming the End of the War and The Book of What Remains.
‘Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe’ by Benjamin Alire Saenz.Credit: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
In 2012 he published Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, a coming-of-age young adult novel that follows two Mexican-American teenage boys, Aristotle Mendoza and Dante Quintana, who form a life-changing friendship in 1987 El Paso, Texas. It went on to win several literary awards including Pura Belpré Award, Stonewall Book Award, and a Michael L. Printz Award Honor.
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The author published a follow-up novel called Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World in 2021 which follows the two characters after the events of the first book.
Sáenz also published Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club in 2013, a collection of short stories that follow characters who cross the U.S.-Mexico border. It won several awards, including the prestigiousPEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. He was the first Latino author and the second gay writer to achieve the award.
When the World Was Happy will be released on Sept. 29. A children’s book will also come out Sept. 29, “Grandma Fina’s Wonderful Umbrella,” published by HarperCollins and illustrated by Raúl the Third, with color by Elaine Bay.
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Source: “AOL Entertainment”
