Mexican-American author and former priest Benjamin Alire Sáenz is the first Latino to win the prestigious PEN/Faulkner literary award.

Saenz collection of stories beat out over 350 literary submissions to win the $15,000 prize.  The PEN/Faulkner was given to the 58-year-old author for his collection of seven stories in “Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club,” published by El Paso-based independent book publisher Cinco Puntos Press.

The collection of stories center around life near the U.S.-Mexico border at a popular bar in Juarez. Border life is something Saenz is very familiar with having grown up in New Mexico. His first published work “Calendar of Dust” a book of poems won an American Book Award in 1992.

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