that your sphere, your real poetry, is prose. It is here, if you are determined enough, that I am sure you can achieve something significant." His first stories to be published were “Na vode” (“On The Water”) and “Chetvero” (“The Four”) in 1911 and 1912. During World War I, he wrote sketches of life at the front, one of which was published. His first book, Morskiye Nabroski (“Sea Sketches”), was published in 1925, but received little attention. This was followed by Minetoza in 1927, and the romantic novel Blistaiushie Oblaka (“Shining Clouds”) in 1929. His work of this period was influenced by Alexander Grin as well as the writers of the "Odessa school", (Isaac Babel, Valentin Kataev, and Yuri Olesha). In the 1930s, Paustovsky visited various constructions sites and wrote in praise of the industrial transformation of the country. To that period belong the novels Kara-Bugaz (1932) and Kolkhida (1934). Kara-Bugaz won particular praise. It is essentially a tale of adventure and exploration in the region around Kara-Bugaz Bay, where the air is mysteriously heavy. 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. Some of them, though do survive and are rescued by an explorer and stay on to help in the exploration, development and study of the natural wealth of the region. Paustovsky continued to explore historical themes in Severnaya Povest ("Tale of the North", 1938). In this tale, after the anti-Tsarist Decembrist uprising in Saint Petersburg, a wounded officer who had taken part in the uprising and a sailor try to make it by foot across the ice to Sweden but are captured in a sequence of dramatic events. Years later, in Leningrad in the 1930s, the great-grandsons of the participants unexpectedly meet. In the late 1930s, Russian nature emerged as a central theme for Paustovsky, for example, in Letniye Dni ("Summer Days", 1937) and Meshcherskaya Storona (1939) in which he treats nature was a many-faceted splendor in which man can free himself from daily cares and regain his spiritual equilibrium. This focus on nature drew comparisons with Mikhail Prishvin. Prishvin himself wrote in his diary, "If I were not Prishvin, I would like to write like Paustovsky." During World War II Paustovsky served as a war correspondent on the southern front. In 1943 he produced a screenplay for