This event takes place in person at Charis and on crowdcast, Charis' virtual event platform. This event is free and registration is required for virtual attendance. Click here to register to attend virtually. Please read the in-person event guidelines at the bottom of this page if you wish to attend in-person.
Charis welcomes Cleyvis Natera in conversation with Tayari Jones for a celebration of Neruda on the Park. “Strikes all the right notes—captivating characters, lyrical language, and a storyline that captures your imagination and refuses to let go . . . an unforgettable debut!”—Tayari Jones, New York Times bestselling author of An American Marriage
The Guerreros have lived in Nothar Park, a predominantly Dominican part of New York City, for twenty years. When demolition begins on a neighboring tenement, Eusebia, an elder of the community, takes matters into her own hands by devising an increasingly dangerous series of schemes to stop construction of the luxury condos. Meanwhile, Eusebia’s daughter, Luz, a rising associate at a top Manhattan law firm who strives to live the bougie lifestyle her parents worked hard to give her, becomes distracted by a sweltering romance with the handsome white developer at the company her mother so vehemently opposes.
As Luz’s father, Vladimir, secretly designs their retirement home in the Dominican Republic, mother and daughter collide, ramping up tensions in Nothar Park, racing toward a near-fatal climax.
A beautifully layered portrait of family, friendship, and ambition, Neruda on the Park weaves a rich and vivid tapestry of community as well as the sacrifices we make to protect what we love most, announcing Cleyvis Natera as an electrifying new voice.
Cleyvis Natera is the author of the debut novel Neruda on the Park. 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.
New York Times best-selling author Tayari Jones is the author of four novels, most recently An American Marriage. Published in 2018, An American Marriage is an Oprah’s Book Club Selection and also appeared on Barack Obama’s summer reading list as well as his year-end roundup. The novel was awarded the Women’s Prize for Fiction (formerly known as the Orange Prize), Aspen Words Prize, and an NAACP Image Award. It has been published in two dozen countries. Jones, a 2021 Guggenheim Fellow, has also been a recipient of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, United States Artist Fellowship, NEA Fellowship, and Radcliffe Institute Bunting Fellowship. Her third novel, Silver Sparrow, was added to the NEA Big Read Library of classics in 2016. Jones is a graduate of Spelman College, University of Iowa, and Arizona State University. She is an Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University and the Charles Howard Candler Professor of Creative Writing at Emory University.
In-person event guidelines:
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All attendees must wear a face mask at all times.
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We will begin seating people at 7 pm ET.
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This event will be live-streamed via crowdcast. Click here to register to attend virtually.
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NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE • An exhilarating debut novel following members of a Dominican family in New York City who take radically different paths when faced with encroaching gentrification
From the author of the Oprah Book Club Selection An American Marriage, here is an emotionally powerful novel that "succeeds mightily...truly a wonderful story" (Boston Globe).
A NEW YORK TIMES AND WASHINGTON POST NOTABLE BOOK
A 2018 BEST OF THE YEAR SELECTION OF NPR * TIME * BUSTLE * O, THE OPRAH MAGAZINE * THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS * AMAZON.COM
OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB 2018 SELECTION
WINNER OF THE 2019 NAACP IMAGE AWARD FOR OUTSTANDI
From the New York Times Bestselling Author of An American Marriage
“A love story . . . Full of perverse wisdom and proud joy . . . Jones’s skill for wry understatement never wavers.”
—O: The Oprah Magazine
“Silver Sparrow will break your heart before you even know it.
From the author of the Oprah's Book Club Selection An American Marriage, here is a beautifully evocative novel that proves why Tayari Jones is "one of the most important voices of her generation" (Essence).