The article offers a brief survey of the emigration from what is now the territory of Belarus and discusses the impact of such an experience on the mindsets and creativity of émigré writers, with a special focus on the linguistic features refashioned under the infl uence of alien cultures. The article analyzes Red Bread by Maurice Hindus and Assignment in Utopia by Eugene Lyons and their partial translations from English into Polish and/or Russian, highlighting the linguistic diffi culties that the translators may have faced as well as possible solutions. Special attention is paid to the sequence of the translators’ actions when working with a stylistically eclectic text, the importance of pre-translation analysis and extratextual factors.