Cleyvis Natera on Capturing a Community and Family in Crisis
In Conversation with M.M. Kaufman on the Micro Podcast
This episode is part of an interview series for Miami Book Fair, where members of Team Micro interview authors appearing at the fair about their work. For more information about MBF’s programming and to check out the incredible roster of authors appearing this year, visit miamibookfair.com. And be sure to follow them at @miamibookfair and #MBF2022 for more updates.
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In this episode, M.M. Kaufman talks to Cleyvis Natera about her debut novel, Neruda in the Park, out now from Ballantine Books.
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From the episode:
Cleyvis Natera: My heart is singing as I’m listening to you react to the book, because there were so many times when I feared that I would not be able to pull it off. As you mentioned, this novel is a story of this community and this family in crisis. And so when the book opens, it’s really establishing this neighborhood as one of the few neighborhoods in all of New York City that somehow has escaped the grasp of gentrification.
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Micro is edited and curated by Dylan Evers and produced and hosted by Drew Hawkins. Theme song is by Matt Ordes. Follow the show on Twitter at @podcastmicro.
Cleyvis Natera is an essayist, short fiction writer, critic and novelist. Her debut novel 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 as the June 2022 pick for Nobel Laurate Malala Yousafzai’s Fearless Literati Book Club.
M.M. Kaufman is a fiction writer based in Georgia. She is a Fulbright Scholar and earned an MFA in the University of New Orleans’ Creative Writing Workshop. She is currently the Managing Editor at Rejection Letters and works on the team for Micro Podcast. Her fiction is published with The Normal School, Hobart, Metonym Journal, Sundog Lit, Daily Drunk Mag, (mac)ro(mic), HAD, Olney Magazine, the Miller Aud-cast, Pine Hills Review, and elsewhere. Find her on Twitter @mm_kaufman and on her website mmkaufman.com.
