Benjamin Alire Saenz: A Brief Analysis

The first Latino have been awarded the winner for the PEN/Faulkner in 2013 was Benjamin Alire Saenz. He was born in New Mexico and was recently interviewed on his life story from being at the bottom to the top of the mountain. He described his achievements, personality, and experiences. He grew up in poverty along with a huge family, containing nine family members in all. Started working at the young age of five is incredible, but that is what matured him to consistently strive for success. His family owned small farm that had to be maintained to uphold their living needs. He always appreciated everything he had in his possession. His both parents were hard workers that spread love to their children. Benjamin mentioned something quite inspirational, “Growing up on that farm has helped me keep a sense of humility, taught me not to carry the weight of entitlement, and pushed me …show more content…
Throughout his youth, his hobby was writing. He mentioned, “I use to write poetry, really bad poetry,” but I believe we ourselves are our worse critic. Therefore, what boosted his assurance to appreciating his talent was another poet, Denise Levertov. She was another exceptional artist he admired, then for her to say, “You must publish his work,” to the publishers at New Direction really out touched him. After that, I believe that he gained the confidence to not being so hard on himself. At the age of fifty-four, he announced that he was gay. However, it didn’t make a difference, because he was and still is a great successful person. He has the theory of that it doesn’t matter what classification you are, because at the end, all that matter is if you became successful in something that you enjoy. Proudly, he recently earned the title as the winner of the 2016 Texas Writer Award. Anyone can write, but the real question is that are you happy with yourself. If not, rewrite it until you are, because there is always room for improvement to be better than the