of the author himself" ibid. "When we first met, the name Varban Stamatov was already on several book titles. In 1960 his selected short stories for children and teenagers ("The old boatswain narrates") was published. As a man, who even then displayed a particular interest in children's literature, I found a new stream in his stories, a new method towards the marine theme, as well as towards memories of the past. Children's literature had a need for sincere and truthful words or, said succinctly, for realistic reading. Just such an impression of profound and earnest realism was left at my first reading a book by Varban Stamatov.″ Stamatov V., Hostage and fugitive Fatherland 1997 p. 40 ″И колкото да ми бе необяснимо отде, все по-нещо пестеше, заемаше отнякъде, запушваше 'дупки' и после връщаше на части само и само да ни купи на изплащане от пътуващите книжари по някоя от ония "вечни книги" според нея, нужни не по-малко от хляба-съчиненията на Вазов, Достоевски, Джек Лондон, Сервантес, Рабле, Омир″. (in translation- ″And in as much as it was inexplicable to me how or where she got it, she was always frugally sparing something, borrowing, filling up 'gaps' and then returning in parts what she owed, just so she could afford to buy us (in installments) one of those "eternal books", that according to her we needed as much as bread itself-the literary works of Ivan Vazov, Dostoyevski, Jack London, Cervantes, Rabelais, Homer.″ ″Литературен Фронт″ 26 July 1984, Любомир Левчев, ″До Върбан Стаматов Тук″ София Literaturen Front, 26 July 1984, Lyubomir Levchev, "Address to Varban Stamatov" Sofia ″Grown up in Veliko Turnovo and Varna, you participated in the Fatherland Front in World War II. Your initial manifestations in prose writing, "Soldier's Chronicles" and the novelette "Out of love" reflect the national struggle, paint the dismal images in the lives of dockers, of poor fishermen and sailors, tell an inspiring story of the birth of a new society. Your true vocation as a marine-novelist is shown in "The coast of the poor". The marine theme through your creativity is transformed into a part of the lives of the people, of their existence and contemporary aspirations. With special love you describe the sea and the work of those Bulgarian men, absent from home for months. The mastery of this theme culminates in your novel "Flagman". There follow "Letters from the sea" and "The great bitter