His works are delicate balancing acts that superficially send pro-Communist messages but reveal far greater subtlety and richness upon a deeper reading.

[2][3] In 1902 Olesha and his family settled in Odessa, where Yuri would eventually meet many of his fellow writers such as Isaac Babel, Ilya Ilf, and Valentin Kataev, and ultimately maintain a lifelong friendship with the latter.

As a student, Yuri demonstrated a knack for science but favored literature above his other subjects and began writing during the year before his graduation cum laude from high school.

In 1922, Olesha published his first short story, "Angel," and moved to Moscow the same year to work at a popular railway worker's periodical called The Whistle.

In addition to prose fiction, Olesha also wrote for the stage, not only adapting his novel Envy for the theater in 1929 under the title Conspiracy of Feelings, but also writing an original play called A List of Assets in 1931 and dramatizing Dostoevsky's novel The Idiot later in life.