In this study of Russian- and English-language literary translation, the author evaluates two radically different worlds—the organized, uniformly defined Soviet school and the free-ranging and often contradictory approaches by individual translators in America—and demonstrates that the study of translation has converged on a worldwide basis in agreement about the art of translation. In-depth discussions of translation theory, criticism, and practice illuminate the methodology of both worlds, with emphasis given to the advances developed by the Soviet school, which until now has remained little known in the West. In his examination of the constraints and demands encountered in the process of translation, the author offers an especially insightful look at the effects of ideology and censorship on Soviet translation and at the advantages and disadvantages of cultural plurality in American translation. Through comparative stylistic analysis of selected Russian and American classics—such as Crime and Punishment, Eugene Onegin, Huckleberry Finn, and The Grapes of Wrath—the author reaches significant new conclusions about how two world cultures convey literature in translation.