Names on a Map

by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

First published 2008

Season by season, a poetic voice shifts from incantatory to deadpan, reflecting on language, time, and art. Amid the bureaucrats, surfboards, and blue margaritas, this lyric chronicle composes an expansive, sensorial account of a life felt, thought, and dreamed. At its emotional core, this unique book reclaims territory long abandoned by American poetry, offering diverse perspectives on the world as seen, known, and imagined.

Genres: literary-fiction, american-fiction, contemporary, 21st-century

Vibes: emotional, intimate, lyrical, thought-provoking

Tropes: poetic-voice, sensorial-account

Setting: El Paso, Texas

423 pages · Paperback · Harper Perennial

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