Калчев

Today, no one seriously believes in astrology, this self-proclaimed sister of the exact sciences, before whose prophecies popes and monarchs once trembled. The works of the divine Nostradamus have long been only the subject of philological studies, and astrologers have become a greater rarity than both Egyptian priests and Egyptian fakirs. So it would hardly occur to anyone to look for "divine omens" in the coincidence of the twentieth anniversary of the socialist revolution in Bulgaria with the fiftieth anniversaries of some of our writers. And, of course, only in a metaphorical, and very approximate sense can the expression be used that "their horoscopes coincide", but it is precisely the deep regularity of this coincidence that gives us the right to resort to its help. And indeed. Now, as we enter a period of creative reckoning, of national celebrations and reports, the question naturally arises: what were the writers-anniversaries like before, what did they become after the people's victory over fascism and capitalism.

I wouldn't call Kamen Kalchev's new novel a "coup" in the writer's development, but it is undoubtedly a pleasant surprise. An author who has been visibly gaining momentum lately has reached a higher point of creative self-realization. It is hardly correct to say that he has surpassed himself. Rather, he has surpassed certain ideas of criticism about his creative possibilities. Because even in his most contemporary books in terms of subject matter, in his most noble responsiveness to the conflicts of the current day, Kalchev satisfied critical demands halfway, kept critical approvals at a very moderate level.

With "Two in the New Town" Kamen Kalchev enters the spiritual world of the ordinary person, reaches psychological generalizations, subordinated to a broad ideological concept. K. Kalchev proves that he is a writer with a wide range of creative interests, that he discovers something more in the thoughts and feelings of people of our time, presents the drama of the person from our society. His hero is placed in a contemporary setting, and this already determines his behavior, revealed in the aspect of social development. There is nothing tragic if the hero experiences his drama, the main thing is in the name of what he does this, what he is guided by. And Marin Maslarski is guided by humane feelings, by the thought of being useful, of being a person above all.