Zach is eighteen. He is bright and articulate. He's also an alcoholic and in rehab instead of high school, but he doesn't remember how he got there.

The first day of senior year: Everything is about to change. Until this moment, Sal has always been certain of his place with his adoptive gay father and their loving Mexcian-American family.

It is 1969, America is at war, "Hollywood" is a dirt-poor Chicano barrio in small-town America, and Sammy and Juliana face a world of racism, war in Vietnam, and barrio violence.

On the surface, Ramiro Lopez and Jake Upthegrove couldn’t live more different lives. Ram is Mexican-American, lives in the poor section of town, and is doing his best to keep his mother sane while his brother fights off a drug-induced coma.

When the two meet at the swimming pool, they seem to have nothing in common. But as the loners start spending time together, they discover that they share a special friendship—the kind that changes lives and lasts a lifetime.

Diego and his sister Gabriela argue over their new dog Sofie. But it's only when Sofie gets really sick that they find out who their tortilla-loving pup really belongs to.

Ninety-two-year-old Octavio Rivera is a beautiful dreamer. And lately he has been visited by some very interesting dreams—dreams about piñatas that spill their treasures before him.

Grandma Fina is walking through her neighborhood with her wonderful yellow umbrella. She loves her yellow umbrella!

Sensitively told and true to the experience of many Mexican Americans, this bilingual picture book bridges the borders that separate all families who must live far apart from their loved ones.—Booklist

Benjamin Alire Sáenz's stories reveal how all borders entangle those who live on either side. Take, for instance, the Kentucky Club on Avenida Juárez two blocks south of the Rio Grande.

The Espejo family of El Paso, Texas, is like so many others in America in 1967, trying to make sense of a rapidly escalating war they feel does not concern them.

From award-winning poet Benjamin Alire Sáenz comes In Perfect Light, a haunting novel depicting the cruelties of cultural displacement and the resilience of those who are left in its aftermath.

At seven, Gloria Santos accepts a ride with a charming stranger--and loses the only world she has ever known. Abducted and kept hidden by a respected academic for twenty long years, Gloria is raised in the shadow of her captor's dark, disturbed mind.

As an abandoned deaf mute son of Mexican migrant workers struggles as a dishwasher in El Paso, drawing solace only from his makeshift circle of friends, his sister lives an assimilated Yuppie life in San Francisco, taking great pains to keep the past buried forever.

A collection of short stories and Benjamin Saenz’s first work of fiction.

A series of personal and historical poems that tells the history of the desert Saenz loves in poetic form.

Indeed, this is a book about faith—a cry for honesty, compassion and community as antidotes to the cold hearted self-interest that drives so much of American culture. - Alison Hawthorn Deming

This gripping suite of twelve dreams, infused with the conflict along the border of Mexico and the United States, traces humanity's addiction to violence and killing--from boys stepping on ants to men shooting animals, men shooting women, men shooting enemies.

Benjamin Saenz writes, “In the desert, we live in a desert of translation.” That is exactly what he sets out to do, in this, his third of poems—translate experience into words.

A major Latino writer's intimate but healing journey through addiction, human desire and broken love.

Three poetic statements unite and intertwine in this slim volume to create a rare insight into the lives of people who bear witness to the exclusionary nature of society's most basic assumptions about the nature of gender and desire: men in women's bodies, outcasts, who make their living as prostitutes.

Benjamin Alire Saenz uses language with uncommon passion, lyricism, and urgency to act as the intentional witness in a transitional space: the border between the United Sates and Mexico.