Bill Text: TX SR92 | 2023-2024 | 88th Legislature | Introduced
Bill Title: Congratulating Benjamin Alire Sáenz of El Paso on his receipt of the 2023 Texas Medal of Arts Award for the Literary Arts from the Texas Cultural Trust.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 1-0)
Status: (Passed) 2023-01-24 - Reported enrolled [SR92 Detail]
Download: Texas-2023-SR92-Introduced.html
| 88R9011 BPG-D | ||
| By: Blanco | S.R. No. 92 | |
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| WHEREAS, Benjamin Alire Sáenz of El Paso has been named the | ||
| recipient of the 2023 Texas Medal of Arts Award for the Literary | ||
| Arts by the Texas Cultural Trust; and | ||
| WHEREAS, An acclaimed poet, novelist, and children's author, | ||
| Benjamin Sáenz was born in New Mexico to a family with strong West | ||
| Texas roots; his passions for learning and social justice led him to | ||
| join the Catholic clergy, and he completed his bachelor's degree in | ||
| humanities and philosophy at St. Thomas Seminary in Colorado and | ||
| studied theology at the University of Louvain in Belgium; three | ||
| years as a parish priest in El Paso taught him that his real calling | ||
| was the literary life; and | ||
| WHEREAS, Mr. Sáenz waited tables for a time to save up for | ||
| graduate school; after earning a master's degree in creative | ||
| writing from The University of Texas at El Paso, he embarked on | ||
| fellowships at the University of Iowa and Stanford University; his | ||
| first collection of poems, Calendar of Dust, received the American | ||
| Book Award; in 1994, he returned to his beloved El Paso, joining the | ||
| faculty of his alma mater and eventually becoming chair of the UTEP | ||
| bilingual master of fine arts creative writing program; and | ||
| WHEREAS, Uncommonly prolific, Mr. Sáenz has produced a | ||
| wide-ranging body of work, including six volumes of poetry, four | ||
| novels, two collections of short stories, four bilingual children's | ||
| books, and five young adult novels; teachers across the country | ||
| value his writing for its powerful representation of the Latino | ||
| youth experience, and his coming-of-age love story, Aristotle and | ||
| Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, became an international | ||
| bestseller; translated into two dozen languages, it has won nearly | ||
| 30 literary awards, and a movie version premiered at the 2022 | ||
| Toronto International Film Festival; the book landed on the New | ||
| York Times Bestseller List a decade after its first publication, | ||
| and its sequel debuted at the top of the list; his many honors | ||
| include the Texas Book Award and the Lon Tinkle Award for Lifetime | ||
| Achievement, the highest conferred by the Texas Institute of | ||
| Letters; in addition, he was the first Latino and first Texan to | ||
| receive the prestigious national PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction; | ||
| and | ||
| WHEREAS, Benjamin Sáenz has touched the hearts and stirred | ||
| the imaginations of innumerable people through writing that is at | ||
| once deeply personal, broadly human, and richly expressive of the | ||
| ambiguities of the borderlands; now, therefore, be it | ||
| RESOLVED, That the Senate of the 88th Texas Legislature | ||
| hereby congratulate Benjamin Alire Sáenz on his receipt of the 2023 | ||
| Texas Medal of Arts Award for the Literary Arts from the Texas | ||
| Cultural Trust and extend to him sincere best wishes for the future; | ||
| and, be it further | ||
| RESOLVED, That an official copy of this resolution be | ||
| prepared for Mr. Sáenz as an expression of high regard by the Texas | ||
| Senate. | ||
