Please join the Department of English Visiting Writers Series for a reading with novelist Cleyvis Natera.
Natera is an award-winning author, essayist, and critic. Her debut novel, Neruda on the Park, was a New York Times Editor’s Choice and winner of a Silver Medal by the International Latino Book Awards for Best First Book of Fiction. Her sophomore novel, The Grand Paloma Resort, was named a best book of 2025 by ELLE, Electric Literature, and CrimeReads. Her other writing has appeared in the Modern Love column in The New York Times, bon appetit, Kirkus, The New York Times Book Review, TIME, The Washington Post, USA TODAY, Pleiades, The Kenyon Review, Aster(ix) and Kweli Journal, among others. Natera has received awards, fellowships and artist residencies from the Vermont Studio Center, PEN America, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Hermitage Artist Retreat, among others. She was the recipient of the prestigious Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference 2024 Toni Morrison Fiction Fellowship. She is currently a Fulbright Specialist. She joined Montclair State University in the fall of 2024 as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Creative Writing where she currently leads the development of an M.F.A. in Bilingual Creative Writing Program. Natera is also part of the creative writing faculty at Barnard College of Columbia University and The New School M.F.A. program.
The Grand Paloma Resort is a lush paradise in the Dominican Republic where guests enjoy incredible luxury, and the staff is always eager to please—that is, until they are pushed to the brink. Set over the course of seven days, The Grand Paloma Resort offers an unforgettable story of class, family, and community, building to an intense climax in which the true costs of luxury are laid bare, forcing Laura and Elena to reckon with long-held secrets and true acts of love.
This reading is free and open to the public, and it will be followed by a Q&A and book signing. Books will be available for sale from Prologue Bookshop.
