The paper focuses on the problematic relation between the literary text and its translation(s) from the perspective of the ethical code that the translator as a mediator between cultures must abide by. Starting from an overview of translation theories centred upon several dichotomies – translatable/untranslatable, literal/free translation, word/sense, faithfulness/unfaithfulness, writer/translator, original text/copy, translation/imitation, national/foreign – to be addressed in cross-cultural terms, it aims at demonstrating that strategies in translation depend on the Weltanschauung of both the source and the target cultures, that, by virtue of ethical principles that have been subject of debate in theory and practice, translators of literary texts must take into account the features of both cultural systems brought into contact and explain their choices. Numerous examples of concepts and lexical gaps from various languages and cultures are particularly foregrounded to show to what extent the creativity of literary translators may contribute to overcoming linguistic and cultural boundaries in the translation process.