Alexander Fiske-Harrison: Writer, Bull-Runner and Voice on the Spanish Bulls
British author, journalist and conservationist Alexander Fiske-Harrison is also a seasoned bull-runner and a former amateur bull-fighter. Raised in England, he relocated to Spain in his thirties. His academic background includes large mammal zoology and animal behaviour at the University of Oxford, followed by postgraduate study of the foundations of biology and animal consciousness at the University of London.
While researching a book, he trained as a bullfighter in Andalusia alongside matadors such as Juan José Padilla, Cayetano Rivera Ordóñez and Eduardo Dávila Miura. That book, Into The Arena: The World Of The Spanish Bullfight, was shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book Of The Year Award 2011. His tale of 1950s Paris and Pamplona, Les Invincibles, was shortlisted for The Hemingway Prize 2016 in France. In Spain he has spoken at the Foundation of Taurine Studies, at the University of Seville and for the Spanish Ambassador to the United Kingdom.
Writing and Broadcasting on the World of the Bulls
His work on the bullfighting world has appeared in national and international outlets including 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, apart from 2010 — when he was bullfighting in Andalusia — has taken part every year since in the San Fermín encierros, as well as in bull-runs in other Spanish towns such as 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 share these words quietly — in restaurants, in bars, in letters, emails and social media groups. The chatter about the bulls goes on all year, yet a chill of anxiety, trepidation and dread creeps into our voices as the spring sun climbs. Deep in the unconscious, the vernal equinox stirs dark things: memories, fears, the ghosts of bulls we have run with and nearly died with.
Why This Book Was Needed
Every day I have run in Pamplona — the greatest and most famous encierro of them all — my fear for myself has been matched by fear for others. Across the forty-odd San Fermín encierros I have run (as of 2016), I have been struck by how many newcomers seem to believe these animals are somehow not dangerous, even tame — otherwise, how would the event be permitted? 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 borrow from The Go-Between, is that Spain is a foreign country; they do things differently there.
In 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 Spanish fighting bull weighing 585kg (1,290lbs/92 stone) charged straight at me. That day the bull, Empleado, from the notoriously dangerous Cebado Gago ranch, chose the man beside me instead. He went to hospital while I went to Bar Txoko — and it was the bull that decided who ended up where. That day made me as a bull-runner, and I have not run the same since.
Lessons from Cuéllar and the Streets
That is why in 2015 in Cuéllar — the Old Castile 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, nods its head as though bowing in respect, and yet, in a movement too fast for the human eye, punches its horn up under the man’s ribs and bursts his heart within his chest. In total, fifteen people died in bull-running events across Spain that year.
In 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 matches 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.
Fatalities, Statistics and the Skydiving Comparison
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 roughly 1 in 150,000 runs. That is about the same as the fatality rate for jumping out of an aeroplane: according to the United States Parachute Association, of 3.5 million jumps in 2015 there were 21 fatal accidents. Yet there is 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
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- Dennis Clancey
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