George Bernard Shaw once wrote that “it is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him”. The speech of a character in a novel written in English would describe them better than the most detailed CV. If the author wants to sketch a memorable image of a character, add some local colour, revile (or extol) social differences, picture national conflicts — he or she would always find a common expression, foreign accent or inimitable dialect. To say nothing of the situations when a novel puts together British and American characters ‘divided by a common language.’ How can one translate all that polyphony into Russian? In the course of our session, we will have a look at the methods of different translators, and try our hand at a few short texts.