Philip Roth’s recent death brought this to mind.
I wrote a story, Princess of the Night, as an exercise in a class I took during a workshop in Prague. On the plane to Prague, I read a novel by Philip Roth and his fascinating style was in my mind when we were given an assignment. So this story owes its life to Roth. Little did I know that my instructor, Arnost Lustig, a well known Czech writer, was a personal friend of Roth. My paper was met with modest feedback. I never claimed to be as good as Roth!
You can read it here: Princess of the Night