When he was in the 6th grade his father left the family and he was forced to give private lessons in order to earn a living.

After two of his brothers died on the front line, he returned to his mother in Moscow but later left and wandered around, trying his hands at many jobs, initially working in the metallurgical factories in Yekaterinoslav and Yuzovka.

Later he joined a cooperative association of fishermen (artel) in Taganrog, where he started his first novel Романтики ("Romantiki", Romantics) which was published in 1935.

He returned to the main theme of Romantics, the destiny of an artist who strives to overcome his loneliness, and his experiences in Taganrog in later works, including Разговор о рыбе (“Razgovor o ribe”, Conversation about the Fish), Азовское подполье (“Azovskoe podpolie”, Azov Underground) and Порт в траве (“Port v trave”, Seaport in The Grass).

His work of this period was influenced by Alexander Grin as well as the writers of the "Odessa school", (Isaac Babel, Valentin Kataev, and Yury Olesha).

It begins in 1847 and moves to the Russian Civil War period when a group of Red Guards is abandoned to near-certain death on a desolate island.

In 1943 he produced a screenplay for the Gorky Film Studio production of Lermontov, directed by Albert Gendelshtein.

Paustovsky was also the author of several plays and fairy tales, including "Steel Ring" and of Zolotaya Rosa "The Golden Rose" (1955), in which he discusses the process of literary creation.

It is not a strictly historical document but rather a long, lyrical tale focusing on the internal perceptions and poetic development of the writer.

The autobiography was translated into English by Manya Harari and Michael Duncan, and published in six volumes by Harvill Press.

[1] In February 1966 he was one of the 25 prominent figures from science and the arts who signed a letter to the 23rd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, appealing against re-Stalinization in the wake of the Sinyavsky–Daniel trial.