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NEW YORK (AP) -- Benjamin Alire Saenz, an award-winning fiction writer and poet who drew upon his sexuality and his life on the Southern border, has died at age 71. He was the first Latino to win the PEN/Faulkner prize.
Saenz, who produced a story collection that won the PEN/Faulkner prize and a young adult novel that received acclaim from readers and reviewers and condemnation from censors, died last week in El Paso, Texas after a lengthy illness, according to a spokesperson for Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing. Additional details were not immediately available.
Saenz, born in Old Picacho, New Mexico, was an ordained Catholic priest who eventually left the order and came out as gay. His "Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe," the story of two Mexican American boys falling in love, was published in 2012 and received a pair of citations for outstanding LGBTQ+ literature: a Stonewall Honors Book Award and the Lambda Literary Award.
"Hamilton" playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda, who narrated the audio edition and helped produce a 2023 film adaptation, wrote in an Instagram post that he was "heartbroken" over Saenz's death.