 The inspiration for Atheis came, according to Oemarjati, sometime during the early 1940s. In Mihardja's observations, Marxism – Leninism and anarcho-nihilism were among the most common ideologies in Indonesia; this led him to depict Rusli and Anwar as holding those ideologies. Meanwhile, emerging writers such as Idrus, Asrul Sani, and Chairil Anwar were increasingly critical of the older generation of Indonesian authors, whom they decried as narrow-minded and provincial. Mihardja, who was older than many contemporary writers and wrote in a similar style to the older authors, disliked this comparison; according to Maier, this may have led him to represent Chairil Anwar as a much-flawed character. Mihardja formalised his concept throughout the early 1940s and completed the writing during a period of unemployment from May 1948 until February 1949.
