Zoe Chin ’28
Staff Writer
On Oct. 27, students, faculty, and community members welcomed author Cleyvis Natera for an @Noon talk hosted by Scripps Presents.
Natera, an Afro-Latina fiction novelist, was born in the Dominican Republic and immigrated to the United States with her family when she was 10 years old, settling in the Bronx in New York City. Her childhood in the Dominican Republic and the experiences of her family as immigrants of color have deeply impacted both of her published works.
Natera earned a bachelor’s degree in Literature and Creative Writing at Skidmore College and later obtained her MFA in Creative Writing from New York University. She now teaches Creative Writing at Barnard College, Columbia University. Her first novel was a New York Times Editor’s Choice and received a Silver Medal from the International Latino Book Awards for Best First Book of Fiction, among other honors. She has received fellowships from PEN America, the Vermont Studio Center, Hermitage Artist Retreat, and Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference.
The talk, led by Professor Myriam Chancy, centered around Natera’s second novel, newly published in August 2025, “The Grand Paloma Resort.” This talk was timely for many, as Chancy assigned the novel to her Core 3 class, Caribbean Women Writers.
The event began with a catered lunch, followed by an introduction of the author from Chancy, a reading of the novel by Natera herself, and then a conversation between the two, concluding with a short Q&A session. Natera, clad in a bright yellow blouse that evoked the vibrancy of her writing, prefaced her reading with a story of the novel’s conception. During the COVID-19 lockdown, Natera was faced with a desire for escapism and found just the thing in her fiction. The author’s mindset on travel is reflected in the themes of “The Grand Paloma Resort” and in the journey of the main characters.
“The Grand Paloma Resort” follows two sisters who work at a resort in the Dominican Republic and their struggle to manage an escalating crisis involving a tourist child under the care of the younger sister, Elena. Under the surface of the novel are discussions about the impacts of colonialism and capitalism on the tourism industry and what it means to be wealthy in the face of danger.
Natera read two excerpts from her novel — one centered around the beginning of Elena’s troubles with the sick tourist child, and the second about older sister Laura’s interaction with a pair of older tourist sisters who invite her to slow down and share a drink.
For those who had yet to read the novel, hearing excerpts that captured both sisters’ perspectives helped to provide a more well-rounded understanding of the main characters and the circumstances at the foreground of the novel.
Following the reading, Chancy and Natera found their way to the discussion chairs at the front of the room. In conversation, the two discussed how Natera’s lived experiences influenced her writing. Natera explained that her upbringing in the Dominican Republic, in contrast to her luxury travels in adulthood, gave her a deeper awareness of the injustices surrounding travel and tourism.
“When you travel, you realize your world is a completely made-up space,” Natera said.
Later, Chancy prompted a discussion about the hurricane that barrels through the resort in the novel. Natera opened up about her memories of destructive weather in her home country and recounted a particular hurricane that flattened her home when she was a young girl. When the storm hit, she and her family took shelter at her grandmother’s house.
“As I was looking outside, there was something really thrilling for me because I was safe,” Natera detailed.
The young girls, Laura and Elena, in “The Grand Paloma Resort,” also suffer through a hurricane, yet are sheltered by the resort, calling forth reflections on the interactions between refuge and wealth.
“When I think about refuge, I ask, what does it mean to have shelter? What does it mean to have safety?” The answer, Natera said, is that “wealth is the ultimate shelter.”
Discussion about genre also arose. When writing “The Grand Paloma Resort,” Natera recognized that in travel fiction, books almost always center on tourists and foreigners. In response, she sought to challenge this narrative and “decolonize the genre” to reveal more holistic truths in the travel fiction space.
The event concluded with a conversation about reconciling creativity and history. Natera argued that the best way to combat the erasure of painful history is through fiction, a concept she discovered during her time as an undergraduate student at Skidmore. In her novel, Natera explores this challenge: “How can you present history in a way that doesn’t weigh down a novel, but enriches it?”
