Sarah Pollack, Professor and Chair of the College of Staten Island’s Department of World Languages and Literatures, is earning national recognition for her work as a literary translator. Her English translation of Peruvian-American Oswaldo Estrada’s Dreams in Times of War / Soñar en tiempos de guerra has been named a finalist for the 2026 International Latino Book Awards in the Best Fiction Book Translation – Spanish to English category.
Published by the University of New Mexico Press in 2025 as the inaugural book of its series Encrucijadas/Crossroads, Dreams in Times of War is a bilingual collection of 12 short stories by Estrada, a literary scholar at the Spanish National Research Council in Madrid (CSIC). The book follows Latin American immigrants in the United States, among them a Peruvian boy who flies alone to meet the father he barely knows, a gardener who turns ordinary yards into Edens while guarding a dangerous secret, and an undocumented young woman in college whose personal story contrasts sharply with those of her classmates. Together, the stories examine themes including displacement, labor, violence, family, gender identity, discrimination, community, and the search for belonging, while also highlighting the resilience and connections that emerge from shared experiences. Read more...
