Dreams in Times of War / Soñar en tiempos de guerra: Stories / Cuentos

In twelve stories, Dreams in Times of War / Soñar en tiempos de guerra brilliantly fictionalizes the lives of Latinx immigrants in the United States. A Peruvian American child is sent alone to the States to meet a father he left as an infant; a gardener transforms yards into Edens but hides a dangerous secret; an undocumented young woman dreams of going to college to provide permanency for herself and her mother. These stories explore toxic masculinity, domestic abuse, and (trans)gender discrimination, but they also showcase the alternative communities formed by these experiences that offer solidarity and hope. Readers will celebrate this unflinching but heartfelt look at diverse twenty-first-century immigrant experiences.

ACCLAIM
“Oswaldo Estrada recreates an urgent world in which car bombs explode, farm workers sing like Lila Downs, and passports are clenched like talismans. The moral compasses of his characters illuminate new ways of being for us all. These aren’t just gorgeously composed stories. These are searing acts of narrative justice.”—Stephanie Elizondo Griest, author of All the Agents and Dispatches from the U.S. Borderlands

“We hear in these piercing stories that ‘life’s not all work’ and that the migrating world is full of people trying to piece together their complicated lives so far from home. Dreams in Times of War testifies honestly to desperation, affirmation, aggression, venality, and love—all the complications that come with the cost of living.”—Manuel Muñoz, author of The Consequences

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Oswaldo Estrada is an award-winning author of many books including the short-story collections Luces de emergencia (Emergency Lights) and Las guerras perdidas (The Lost Wars) and the novel Tus pequeñas huellas (Footprints). He is a professor of Latin American Literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Sarah Pollack is a professor of Spanish and translation studies at CUNY–Staten Island and the Graduate Center. She has translated many other books, including Passages by Mariana Graciano and Time Without Selected Poems by Ida Vitale. View Less