This paper problematizes our understanding of concepts such as “translation,” “adaptation,” and “influence” by focusing on the theme of East-West relations and its representation in contemporary Turkish literature and cinema. It traces how this theme has engaged writers and filmmakers, who not only rely on previous tradition but also expand on it, adopting and adapting it for their own purposes. My paper takes this theme to another level to show how Erdag Goknar, the translator of Orhan Pamuk’s novel Benim Adim Kirmizi, gave the theme an “afterlife” in English and how Dervis Zaim translated the same theme into cinematic language in Cenneti Beklerken/Waiting for Heaven. So far translation has been seen as word for word transliteration of one language into another. This approach ignores the translator’s agency, the process of translation, and how the final product is shaped and received and rewritten by editors, reviewers, and audience. My paper reveals some creative choices Goknar made in order to make Benim Adim Kirmizi (1998) and the theme of East-West relations available to western audience. In 2006 Zaim takes on the same theme in his film Cenneti Beklerken and “translates” it for the wide screen, asking his audience to weight eastern (miniature) and western (painting) means of visual representation against each other. His cinematic style breaks away from traditional Turkish cinematic didacticism and crude political film making and takes his viewer into the realm of arts and the limits thereof. In Benim Adim Kirmizi, Pamuk employs multiple narrators to provide his reader with multiple perspectives. Translating the novel, Erdag Goknar not only translates the plot into English but also engages with fine aspects of literary style to tune it for western audience. Zaim exploits the limits of visual representations by questioning the limits of miniature and painting and also the limits of his own camera to represent life. All three “creators,” writer-translator-film maker, end up questioning the limits of artistic language in the face of human experience.