The first time I ever saw people of any color was when D-Day left from my hometown in England, to go and free Europe from the war. And there was every color you could imagine, and I'd not seen that in England.
But if I were to say who influenced me most, then I'd say Franz Kafka. And his works were always anchored in the Central European region.
Christmas is a holiday that persecutes the lonely, the frayed, and the rejected.