![]() Dante, a lover of poetry and a passionate crier, reminded me of myself so much it hurt, while every ounce of Aristotle’s emotions – his confusion, his longing, his hate – resonated with me. What seems like a simple story about friendship is a simple story about friendship, but there are profound themes woven in and the quality of the characterization is simply breathtaking. Their coming of age story is shown beautifully. Throughout the book, Aristotle and Dante are exposed and layered, continually growing more complex but also becoming more bare. I never felt like I was a part of their world. I’d played basketball and baseball and done the Cub Scout thing, tried the Boy Scout thing – but I always kept my distance from the other boys. I’d never really been very close to other people. We experience the story from Ari’s perspective, from the first time he met Dante at his local swimming pool. ![]() This book is about two Mexican-American teens trying to find their way in the world, but before they do that, they find each other – Aristotle and Dante, the former a self-doubting silent guy, the latter an expressive, fair skinned swimmer. There are no overtly sentimental Nicholas Sparks plot twists, no super sexy erotica Fifty Shades of Grey style, not even an ardent declaration of love via Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. It’s not dramatic at all, in the typical sense. ![]() Perhaps I’m making this book seem more dramatic than it actually is. At the end of the book, allow a single tear to run down your right cheek and say a silent prayer of thanks for the fact that you are able to read at all. Slam the book shut and whisper-scream oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh. Read past midnight, read in school, read everywhere and all the time. Fall in love with the writing, the characters, everything. Obtain a copy of Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe.ģ. He continues to teach in the Creative Writing Department at the University of Texas at El Paso.ġ. In 2005, he curated a show of photographs by Julian Cardona. Set along the Mexican border, the contrast between the desert's austere beauty and the brutality of border politics mirrors humanity's capacity for both generosity and cruelty. In The Book of What Remains (Copper Canyon Press, 2010), his fifth book of poems, he writes to the core truth of life's ever-shifting memories. His first novel, Carry Me Like Water was a saga that brought together the Victorian novel and the Latin American tradition of magic realism and received much critical attention. Before completing his Ph.D., he moved back to the border and began teaching at the University of Texas at El Paso in the bilingual MFA program. program at Stanford and continued his studies for two more years. While at Stanford University under the guidance of Denise Levertov, he completed his first book of poems, Calendar of Dust, which won an American Book Award in 1992. A year later, he was awarded a Wallace E. He then spent a year at the University of Iowa as a PhD student in American Literature. In 1985, he returned to school, and studied English and Creative Writing at the University of Texas at El Paso where he earned an M.A. He was a priest for a few years in El Paso, Texas before leaving the order. He studied Theology at the University of Louvain in Leuven, Belgium from 1977 to 1981. degree in Humanities and Philosophy in 1977. Thomas Seminary in Denver, Colorado where he received a B.A. He graduated from Las Cruces High School in 1972. He was born at Old Picacho, New Mexico, the fourth of seven children, and was raised on a small farm near Mesilla, New Mexico. Benjamin Alire Sáenz (born 16 August 1954) is an award-winning American poet, novelist and writer of children's books.
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