Tom Haentjens's call for for artists around the world to make new covers for my list of the 100 greatest novels of all time opened up all the old disputes. But reading the thread on last week's blog I began to formulate an alternative catalogue: the names of writers who, in different genres, have exerted a disproportionate hold over the literary imagination and consciousness of their time.

What follows, obviously – but it's worth saying anyway – is highly subjective and inevitably incomplete. First of all, I give you the two writers, from both sides of the Atlantic, who have inspired more pastiche, homage, parody, downright plagiarism, and further originality than most of their rivals: Ernest Hemingway and Samuel Beckett.

In poetry, I'm inclined to suggest that Sylvia Plath, Emily Dickinson and Ted Hughes have also exerted a disproportionate impact, though I'm certain there are many others that I've missed.

In fiction, how about Joseph Conrad, Gabriel García Márquez and Günter Grass. Going further back, in humour and horror, PG Wodehouse and Edgar Allan Poe are two often overlooked writers who have had an extraordinary impact on taste and style.

Finally, from the last 25 years, I'd suggest that WG Sebald, Paul Auster and Martin Amis have each had a profound influence on a generation of new writers. But what do you think? Which writers have had the greatest effect on course of literary culture?

My list of the most influential writers

Ernest Hemingway
Samuel Beckett
Sylvia Plath
Emily Dickinson
Ted Hughes
Joseph Conrad
Gabriel García Márquez
Gunter Grass
PG Wodehouse
Edgar Allan Poe
WG Sebald
Paul Auster
Martin Amis