Take Alice Munro, who, by the way, will be 92 in July. She has been influenced by Chekhov, Flannery OβConnor, and William Trevor. Chekhov, in his turn, had Balzac, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Ibsen as influences. Balzac was influenced by Moliere, Racine, and Shakespeare. Everyone really has been influenced by someone else.