Woody Allen is a legendary American film director, writer, screenwriter and producer, awarded four Oscar statuettes, the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, the Palme d'Or at Cannes and other honorary awards. In 2005, comedy professionals voted Allen the third best comedian of all time. Allen began writing humorous plays and stories as a teenager. In one interview, he admitted: “I always say that I began to write before I learned to read.” At seventeen, he was already collaborating with the popular magazines “New Yorker”, “Playboy”, “Evergreen”, writing sketches, performing as an actor-comedian in nightclubs, writing plays for Broadway theaters. A classic of world cinema, Allen continues to publish his stories in America's best literary magazine, The New Yorker. Funny, full of irony and sarcasm, parodies and grotesqueries, they were published as separate books: “Settling Scores,” “Side Effects” and “Without Feathers.” One of the stories, “The Image of Sidney Kugelmas...”, was awarded the prestigious O’Henry Prize. The stories “Deprived by Fate” and “A Huge Step for All Mankind” are translated by L. Yu. Motylev; the rest are translated by O. V. Dorman.