 He was influenced by writers such as Edgar Allan Poe, Émile Zola, Victor Hugo, Charles Ferdinand Ramuz, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and from Slovak authors, mainly Margita Figuli, Ľudo Ondrejov and Dobroslav Chrobák.Švantner's prose celebrates nature; he was a naturalistic writer.He used elements of irrationality and fantasy, but he mainly explored the boundaries between life and death.