“The People and Places that Make Us” featuring Hermitage Fellow Cleyvis Natera Presented in Partnership with The Hermitage Artist Retreat

In its third collaboration with The Hermitage, the Johann Fust Library Foundation is excited to present a literary talent whose first novel is receiving rave reviews. Cleyvis Natera is an essayist, short fiction writer, critic, and novelist. Her debut novel, Neruda on the Park, speaks to the weighty issues of immigration, gentrification, and race. As serious as these themes are, the book is also entertaining and, at times, funny. It is a passionate romance and a story about the love of family and community.

Neruda on the Park was an anticipated book of 2022 by TIME, The Today Show, Good Morning America’s Zibby Owens, ELLE, Ms Magazine, Bustle, Goodreads, Book Riot, Entertainment Weekly, The Millions, Electric Literature, Lit Hub and The Rumpus.

Upon publication, Neruda on the Park was selected as a May 2022 New York Times Editor’s Choice and the June 2022 pick for Nobel Laureate Malala Yousafzai’s Fearless Literati Book Club.  

Cleyvis was born in the Dominican Republic and raised in New York City. She has received honors from PEN America, Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Hermitage Artist Retreat, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Voices of Our Nation Arts Foundation (VONA). Her fiction, essays, and criticism have appeared in The New York Times Book Review, URSA Fiction, Alien Nation: 36 True Tales of Immigration, The Brooklyn Rail, TIME, The Rumpus, Gagosian Quarterly, The Washington Post, The Kenyon Review, Aster(ix) and Kweli Journal, among other publications.