Alexander Fiske-Harrison: Author, Bull-Runner and Chronicler of the Bulls
Alexander Fiske-Harrison is a British writer, journalist and conservationist who has also made his name as an experienced bull-runner and a former amateur bull-fighter. Born and raised in England, he moved to Spain in his thirties. He studied large mammal zoology and animal behaviour at the University of Oxford, then went on to postgraduate work on the foundations of biology and animal consciousness at the University of London.
As part of his research for a book, he trained as a bullfighter in Andalusia with matadors including Juan José Padilla, Cayetano Rivera Ordóñez and Eduardo Dávila Miura. The resulting book, Into The Arena: The World Of The Spanish Bullfight, was shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book Of The Year Award 2011. His story set in 1950s Paris and Pamplona, ‘Les Invincibles’, was shortlisted for The Hemingway Prize 2016 in France. In Spain he has given talks at the Foundation of Taurine Studies, at the University of Seville and for the Ambassador of Spain to the United Kingdom.
Writing and Broadcasting About the World of the Bulls
His reporting on the bullfighting world has been published and broadcast by national and international outlets such as The Times, The New York Times, Newsweek, GQ magazine, the BBC, CNN and the Discovery Channel. He ran with the bulls in Pamplona for the first time in 2009 and, apart from 2010 – when he was bullfighting in Andalusia – has taken part every year since in the San Fermín encierros, as well as in runs in other Spanish towns including San Sebastián de los Reyes (Madrid), Cuéllar (Castile and León), Tafalla and Falces (Navarre).
El Toro Bravo: A Living Myth
“It’s when the dreams start, the nightmares, the ones with black shadows, the ones with horns. That’s when you know it’s coming; that’s when you know it’s really begun.” Bull-runners pass these words among themselves – murmured in restaurants, whispered in bars, written in letters, typed in emails and shared in runners’ groups online. The talk continues all year, yet a cold note of anxiety, of trepidation, of dread creeps into our voices as the spring sun rises. Deep in the unconscious, the vernal equinox stirs dark things: memories, fears, the ghosts of bulls we have run with and nearly died with.
On every day I have run in Pamplona, the greatest and most famous encierro of them all, my fears for myself have been matched by fears for others. That is why this book exists. At each of those forty-odd San Fermín encierros (as of 2016) I have been struck by how many newcomers seem to think these animals are somehow not dangerous, tame even – otherwise how would the event be allowed? Who would let unwitting tourists loose in a street with half-ton horned animals that have never seen a man on the ground before? The answer, to paraphrase The Go-Between, is that Spain is a foreign country; they do things differently there.
During my fourth encierro, in Pamplona in 2011, I was pinned against the fence by a panicked crush of bodies, unable to move as a four-year-old, 585kg (1,290lbs/92 stone) Spanish fighting bull charged straight at me. That day the bull, Empleado, from the notoriously dangerous ranch of Cebado Gago, picked the man beside me instead. He went to hospital while I went to Bar Txoko – and it was the bull who decided who went where. That day made me as a bull-runner, and I have not run the same way since.
That is why, in 2015 in Cuéllar – the Old Castilian town that hosts the most ancient encierro in the world – I kept a healthy distance from a bull whose left horn was coated with the blood of a man he had just killed. Watch the video of that killing and it seems like a glancing blow: the bull runs past him and nods its head as though bowing in respect, yet in a movement too fast for the human eye it drove its horn up under the man’s ribs and burst his heart inside his chest. In total, fifteen people died in bull-running events across Spain that year.
During an encierro the streets themselves turn into a plaza de toros, a bull ring. In earlier times the bull-run and the bullfight were almost impossible to tell apart: the encierro often finished in the town square, sealed off with wagons or makeshift barricades, and a capea, or informal bullfight, would begin. In Pamplona, where emergency services are primed and medical expertise is that of a major city rather than a village, there have been only fifteen deaths since records began in the 1920s. That is why, unless you know what you are doing – and especially what to do when things go wrong – you needlessly and massively increase your risk of leaving on a stretcher if you are lucky, and in a body-bag if you are not.
The Streets Do Not Belong to Us
The first recorded death was Esteban Domeño Laborra, from Sangüesa (which also holds an encierro), in 1924 – an account appears in The Sun Also Rises, as Hemingway was there that year. The most recent was Daniel Jimeno Romero, from Alcalá de Henares (which also holds an encierro), in 2009 – an account appears in Into The Arena, as I was there that year. Today between fifteen hundred and three thousand people run in each of the eight daily encierros, and with only two fatalities this century the Pamplona fatality rate is around 1 in 150,000 runs. That is roughly the same as the fatality rate for jumping out of an aeroplane: according to the United States Parachute Association, out of 3.5 million jumps in 2015 there were 21 fatal accidents. There is, however, one great difference between skydiving and bull-running: before their first parachute jump, people are invariably taught.
Discover more of the author's work and the wider world of the bulls:
- Editor's Introduction by Alexander Fiske-Harrison
- More by this author
- How to survive the bulls of Pamplona
- Encierro · Bull-run · Bull-running · Bull-runner
- Bullfighting · Bull-fight · Corrida · De los toros
- Ernest Hemingway · Beatrice Welles · Dennis Clancey
- Cuéllar · Estafeta · Callejón · Curva
- Book · Ebook · E-guide · Buy · Amazon
Share This Post
From his first run in Pamplona in 2009 to his training as a bullfighter in Andalusia, Alexander Fiske-Harrison's work brings readers inside the encierro and the culture of the Spanish fighting bull. His books and reporting connect the history of San Fermín with the wider story of el toro bravo.