SOURCE: "Franz Kakfa and William Sansom," in Wisconsin Studies in Contemporary Literature, Vol. VII, No. 1, Winter-Spring, 1966, pp. 76-84.

In the following essay, Neumeyer discusses how Sansom's use of detail and setting, as well as the mood and intent of his stories, was influenced by the writings of Franz Kafka.

It has occasionally been recognized that there is a debt on the part of William Sansom to the writing of Franz Kafka, though the debt seems never to have been very precisely defined, nor the distinctions between the two authors very clearly drawn. Now, especially in the light of a letter from William Sansom himself, and in view of the fact that Sansom's style has changed considerably from what it was when the comparisons first were made, it would seem the occasion to re-examine the nature of the debt at the time it was incurred.

The similarities critics claim...