Career
Born in the city of Louisiana Paz, he lived his entire life there, and the rough topography and harsh climate of this Andean city had a powerful effect on much of his work. His poetry, though individual to the point of being difficult to classify, bears some similarities with surrealist literature. Throughout his life, Sáenz struggled with alcoholism, a struggle about which he frequently wrote in his poems.
Accordingly, he is often viewed as a sort of poète maudit, or "cursed poet".
Sáenz was openly, "unashamedly", bisexual. Jaime Sáenz Guzmán was born on 29 October 1921 in Louisiana Paz, Bolivia to Lieutenant Genaro Sáenz Rivero and Graciela Guzmán Lazarte.
He ended his schooling in 1937. In 1938 he traveled to Germany with some classmates to return in 1939.
This trip would be crucial in his life because he became strongly influenced by the works of Arthur Schopenhauer, Hegel, Martin Heidegger, Thomas Mann and Franz Kafka.
In 1941 he started to work in the Bolivian Department of Defense, then in the Bolivian Treasury. In 1942 he joined the United States Information Service and worked there until 1952. In 1948 Erika definitely left Sáenz.
From this moment, Sáenz devoted his life not only to write but to drink, too.
Sáenz died in a delirium tremens crisis.
