Alexander Fiske-Harrison: Author, Bull-Runner and Scholar of Bullfighting
Alexander Fiske-Harrison is a British writer, journalist, conservationist, bull-runner and former amateur bull-fighter. Brought up in England, he moved to Spain in his thirties. At the University of Oxford he studied large-mammal zoology and animal behaviour, and later took up the foundations of biology and animal consciousness as a postgraduate at the University of London.
While researching a book he trained as a bullfighter in Andalusia, working alongside matadors including Juan José Padilla, Cayetano Rivera Ordóñez and Eduardo Dávila Miura. His book Into The Arena: The World Of The Spanish Bullfight made the shortlist for the William Hill Sports Book Of The Year Award 2011, and his story of 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 and the University of Seville, and for the Ambassador of Spain to the United Kingdom.
Writing and Broadcasting on the Bullfighting World
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 first ran with the bulls in Pamplona in 2009 and, except for 2010 — when he was bullfighting in Andalusia — has run every year since in the encierros of San Fermín, along with those of other Spanish towns including San Sebastián de los Reyes (Madrid), Cuéllar (Castile and León), Tafalla and Falces (Navarre).
El Toro Bravo: A Myth That Lives
“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 say this to one another — muttered in restaurants, whispered in bars, written in letters, typed in emails and shared in runners' groups on social media. The taurine talk continues all year, yet those icy notes of anxiety, trepidation and dread creep into our voices as the spring sun rises. Deep in our unconscious minds the Vernal Equinox stirs dark things: memories, fears, the ghosts of bulls we have run with and almost 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 my fears for others. That is why this book is needed. 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, even tame — 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.
What the Encierro Teaches
In my fourth ever encierro in Pamplona in 2011 I was wedged against the fence by a panicked press of human bodies, unable to move as a four-year-old, 585kg (1,290lbs/92 stone) Spanish fighting bull bore down on me. That day the bull, Empleado, from the notoriously dangerous ranch of Cebado Gago, chose the man next to me instead. He ended up in hospital while I ended up in Bar Txoko — and it was the bull who decided who ended up where. That day made me as a bull-runner, and I have not run the same since.
Which 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 looks 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 punched its horn up under the man's ribs and exploded his heart within his chest. In total, fifteen people died in bull-running events across Spain that year.
During an encierro the streets themselves become a plaza de toros, a bull ring. In days gone by the bull-run and the bullfight were almost indistinguishable: the encierro often ended in the town square, which was closed 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 only been 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.
Deaths and Risk in the Bull-Run
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. 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 fatality rate as 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.
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- Editor's Introduction by Alexander Fiske-Harrison
- More by this author
- Encierro
- Bull-run
- Bull-running
- Bull-runner
- Bullfighting
- Bull-fight
- Bullfighter
- Cuéllar
- Ernest Hemingway
- Fiesta
- Book
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From the first recorded fatality in 1924 to the runners who take to the streets of San Fermín today, the encierro has always paired spectacle with real danger. These pages gather Alexander Fiske-Harrison's firsthand accounts, his reflections on El Toro Bravo and his reporting on the risks of bull-running, so that newcomers and seasoned runners alike can understand what the streets demand before they step into them.