the old 'pro-bulgarianists' will jump, and so will all the historians, but let them before that, think on the author's words: 'our Odyssey in history is from beginning to end without sea, without horizons, lacking thirst for discovering new worlds, without wandering warriors, merchants or seafaring travellers'." ″Пламък″ Май 1984, Банчо Банов, ″Овладяване на морската тема″ София Plamuk, May 1984, Bancho Banov, "Conquering the marine theme" Sofia. “Varban Stamatov isn't one of the praised writers. Furthermore, his name is comparatively seldom seen in literary articles or reviews. I don’t say this to reproach the critics. I consider something else to be more important : he is one of the read writers. Not only men at sea are reading him, those who can recognize themselves in his novels. His creative writing attracts much wider audience, who, in literature search the spirit of the times, truths about moving forward, about the complicated transformation of the human being. Naturally, the marine theme, if it can be called that, is the basis and prevalent in his books. Having taken possession of him since the start of his path in literature, she gradually widened her borders and reached ever greater depths. From “Coast of the poor” through to “Islanders”, “Flagman” and “The great bitter lake” to “Cricket on the Pole” Varban Stamatov unfolded a previously unknown in our literature marine panorama, recreated a new, unresearched by no one else reality in the life of the Bulgarian man. “ ibid. “If in “Flagman” the field of action is deliberately restricted to only the ship’s deck, the “Great bitter lake” is a novel about the contemporary Bulgarian sailor, placed at the centre of the greatest and most turbulent on earth tremors. The rich and complex composition affords the author a freedom to direct his characters to hot spots on the planet everywhere, where a battle is raging against violence and evil. In the novel , the linear annotations of the plot are oddly intertwined and connected. They run in two dimensions: in actual reality-on the old trough, anchored in the Suez Canal during the Israeli aggression, and, in the imaginary, desired world of the characters – experienced in the contra-revolution in Chile, in the victory of the African nations, in the massacres in Indonesia, and who knows where else. This compositional decision has enabled Stamatov to describe to the greatest degree the mentality and soul of his