 Atheis was Mihardja 's first novel ; what few literary works he had written beforehand were mostly short stories and dramas , both those intended for the radio and the stage . He never formally studied writing , instead learning how to write fiction from his experiences reading existing works , including those of André Gide , Leo Tolstoy , Vsevolod Ivanov , and Fyodor Dostoyevsky . His writing style was heavily influenced by that of Gide , particularly as found in The <unk> ( 1902 ) . Malay , the language which forms the basis of modern Indonesian , was not Mihardja 's native language ; his earlier works had all been in Sundanese , and Mihardja had only begun regularly using Indonesian after the Japanese occupation ( 1942 – 1945 ) , when he became a translator . 
