Alexander Fiske-Harrison: Writer, Bull-Runner and Voice of the Bulls
British author and journalist Alexander Fiske-Harrison has become one of the most recognisable English-language commentators on the Spanish bull. Raised in England, he relocated to Spain in his thirties after studying large mammal zoology and animal behaviour at the University of Oxford, later pursuing postgraduate work on the foundations of biology and animal consciousness at the University of London.
While researching his book he trained as a bullfighter in Andalusia under matadors such as Juan José Padilla, Cayetano Rivera Ordóñez and Eduardo Dávila Miura. The resulting work, Into The Arena: The World Of The Spanish Bullfight, was shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book Of The Year Award 2011, and 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, the University of Seville and for the Spanish Ambassador to the United Kingdom.
Writing and Broadcasting on the World of the Bulls
His reporting and commentary have appeared in outlets including The Times, The New York Times, Newsweek, GQ, 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 runs in San Sebastián de los Reyes, Cuéllar, Tafalla and Falces.
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.” So say the bull-runners to one another, muttered in restaurants and whispered in bars, written in letters and typed into emails and social media groups. The chatter runs all year, but those icy notes of anxiety and dread creep into the voice as the spring sun rises, as the Vernal Equinox stirs memories and fears — the ghosts of bulls we have run with and almost died with.
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. Hence this book. At each of those forty-odd San Fermín encierros (as of 2016) I have been struck by how many newcomers seem to believe 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 and they do things differently there.
In my fourth encierro, in Pamplona in 2011, I found myself wedged against the fence by a panicked press of bodies, unable to move as a four-year-old, 585kg Spanish fighting bull bore down on me. That day the bull, Empleado, from the notoriously dangerous Cebado Gago ranch, chose the man beside me instead. He ended up in hospital while I ended up in 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 since.
Which is why in 2015 in Cuéllar, the Old Castile town hosting 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 and it looks like a glancing blow: the bull runs past 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.
The Streets as a Bull Ring
In an encierro the streets themselves become a plaza de toros. In days gone by the bull-run and the bullfight were almost indistinguishable: the encierro often ended in the town square, closed off with wagons or makeshift barricades, where 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.
The first recorded death was Esteban Domeño Laborra, from Sangüesa, in 1924 — an account appears in The Sun Also Rises, as Hemingway was there that year — while the most recent was Daniel Jimeno Romero, from Alcalá de Henares, 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 — roughly the same as jumping out of an aeroplane, which according to the United States Parachute Association saw 21 fatal accidents out of 3.5 million jumps in 2015. There is one great difference, however: before their first parachute jump, people are invariably taught.