diff --git a/DESCRIPTION b/DESCRIPTION
index b84257c7f5..b3b6bea487 100644
--- a/DESCRIPTION
+++ b/DESCRIPTION
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 Package: tiledb
 Type: Package
-Version: 0.21.1.14
+Version: 0.21.2
 Title: Universal Storage Engine for Sparse and Dense Multidimensional Arrays
 Authors@R: c(person("TileDB, Inc.", role = c("aut", "cph")),
  person("Dirk", "Eddelbuettel", email = "dirk@tiledb.com", role = "cre"))
diff --git a/NEWS.md b/NEWS.md
index e3a0c430df..c6d5ca32c7 100644
--- a/NEWS.md
+++ b/NEWS.md
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
-# tiledb ongoing development
+# tiledb 0.21.2
 
-* This release of the R package builds against [TileDB 2.17.3](https://github.com/TileDB-Inc/TileDB/releases/tag/2.17.3), and has also been tested against earlier releases as well as the development version (#602)
+* This release of the R package builds against [TileDB 2.17.4](https://github.com/TileDB-Inc/TileDB/releases/tag/2.17.4), and has also been tested against earlier releases as well as the development version (#611)
 
 ## Improvements
 
@@ -26,6 +26,8 @@
 
 * Enumeration support has been extended to some cases only supported by Arrow (#609)
 
+* Use of TileDB Embedded was upgraded to release 2.17.4 (#611)
+
 ## Bug Fixes
 
 * The DESCRIPTION file now correctly refers to macOS 10.14 (#596)