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.

The recognition is a meaningful acknowledgment of the collaborative nature of literary translation, according to Pollack. “Oswaldo Estrada and I have been friends and colleagues in the same academic field for many years, and now we share a special connection having worked with each other’s words as writer and translator. The book is the culmination of a long creative process that is mostly invisible on the printed page, requiring intense reading and research, many thoughtful discussions and revisions, and ultimately trust in one’s own craft. This recognition is an affirmation of that work, and of the urgency of the voices and stories Estrada entrusted me to retell in English.”

The collection has also received critical attention for its treatment of immigrant experiences and its bilingual presentation. A review in Latino Book Review by Héctor Rendón describes the stories as offering intimate portraits of Latinx immigrant life across different geographies and generations, and calls the book “storytelling that crosses not only borders but barriers of silence.” Another review in Spanglish Voces by Mayra Fortes González highlights the collection’s diverse characters and its exploration of migration, labor, identity, loss, trauma, hope, and community. One of the stories has also received a Pushcart Prize nomination, adding to the collection’s growing literary profile.

For Pollack, the book also shows why translation matters. “There is an infamous and widely cited statistic that less than three percent of all books published in the United States are translations, of which literature is an even smaller fraction. Given the English language’s hegemony, translation into it is a vital bridge to ideas, perspectives, ways of being human in the world that otherwise would be inaccessible for many readers. In Dreams in Times of War, for example, Estrada offers a kaleidoscope of nuanced immigrant stories and experiences that shatter facile narratives of immigrants as either victims or threats. His characters live with war in its many forms, from armed conflict to the daily strain of displacement, and they still want more than survival.”

Pollack’s translation work shows no signs of slowing. During her recent sabbatical, she translated The Vase Threatens to Speak, a book of poetry by acclaimed Peruvian author Miguel Ángel Zapata. Broken Bowl Books will publish it later this month, and it will be launched at the Feria Internacional del Libro de Nueva York, the largest Spanish-language book fair in the United States. Her recent translations also include Time Without Keys: Selected Poems (New Directions, 2023) by Uruguayan poet Ida Vitale, widely regarded as one of the most important writers in the Spanish language. Pollack is currently translating Estrada’s latest novel, Tus pequeñas huellas (Footprints), and will revise it with the author in January.

The 2026 International Latino Book Awards ceremony will take place October 3 at California State University San Marcos, where finalists in the translation categories, including Dreams in Times of War / Soñar en tiempos de guerra, will receive Gold, Silver, or Bronze medals.