Key Facts

• Sáenz died on July 28 in El Paso, Texas, after a long illness.
• He was the first Latino winner of the PEN/Faulkner award for his story collection "Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club."
• He wrote the young adult novel "Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe," about two Mexican American boys falling in love.
• The novel won awards for LGBTQ+ literature but was banned in some places like a Texas school district, Russia, and Belarus.
• Sáenz was an ordained Catholic priest before leaving the order and coming out as gay.
• He taught creative writing for many years at the University of Texas at El Paso and retired in 2016.
• Sáenz’s new book "When the World Was Happy" is set to be published soon and is inspired by a family tragedy and recent school shootings.
• Playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda narrated audiobooks of Sáenz’s work and helped produce the 2023 film adaptation.