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Death in the Afternoon

ernest hemingway

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Still considered one of the best books ever written about bullfighting, Death in the Afternoon is an impassioned look at the sport by one of its true aficionados. It reflects Hemingway's conviction that bullfighting was more than mere sport and reveals a rich source of inspiration for his art. The unrivaled drama of bullfighting, with its rigorous combination of athleticism and artistry, and its requisite display of grace under pressure, ignited Hemingway's imagination. Here he describes and explains the technical aspects of this dangerous ritual and "the emotional and spiritual intensity and pure classic beauty that can be produced by a man, an animal, and a piece of scarlet serge draped on a stick." Seen through his eyes, bullfighting becomes a richly choreographed ballet, with performers who range from awkward amateurs to masters of great elegance and cunning.

A fascinating look at the history and grandeur of bullfighting, Death in the Afternoon is also a deeper contemplation of the nature of cowardice and bravery, sport and tragedy, and is enlivened throughout by Hemingway's sharp commentary on life and literature.

496 pages, Paperback

First published January 1,1932
Places
spain, 

This edition

Format
496 pages, Paperback
Published
September 6, 2000 by Vintage
ISBN
ASIN
B0DSZPQZ1F
Language
English

More editions

About the author

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ernest hemingway

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Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American novelist, short-story writer and journalist. Best known for an economical, understated style that significantly influenced later 20th-century writers, he is often romanticized for his adventurous lifestyle, and outspoken and blunt public image. Most of Hemingway's works were published between the mid-1920s and mid-1950s, including seven novels, six short-story collections and two non-fiction works. His writings have become classics of American literature; he was awarded the 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature, while three of his novels, four short-story collections and three nonfiction works were published posthumously.
Hemingway was raised in Oak Park, Illinois. After high school, he spent six months as a cub reporter for The Kansas City Star before enlisting in the Red Cross. He served as an ambulance driver on the Italian Front in World War I and was seriously wounded in 1918. His wartime experiences formed the basis for his 1929 novel A Farewell to Arms. He married Hadley Richardson in 1921, the first of four wives. They moved to Paris where he worked as a foreign correspondent for the Toronto Star and fell under the influence of the modernist writers and artists of the 1920s' "Lost Generation" expatriate community. His debut novel The Sun Also Rises was published in 1926.
He divorced Richardson in 1927 and married Pauline Pfeiffer. They divorced after he returned from the Spanish Civil War, where he had worked as a journalist and which formed the basis for his 1940 novel For Whom the Bell Tolls. Martha Gellhorn became his third wife in 1940. He and Gellhorn separated after he met Mary Welsh Hemingway in London during World War II. Hemingway was present with Allied troops as a journalist at the Normandy landings and the liberation of Paris. He maintained permanent residences in Key West, Florida, in the 1930s and in Cuba in the 1940s and 1950s. On a 1954 trip to Africa, he was seriously injured in two plane accidents on successive days, leaving him in pain and ill health for much of the rest of his life. In 1959, he bought a house in Ketchum, Idaho, where, in mid-1961, he died of suicide.

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Rating(4.1 / 5.0, 99 votes)
5 stars
37(37%)
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30(30%)
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32(32%)
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99 reviews All reviews
Profile Image for Kimberly .
stevo27
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Surprisingly digestible for 500 pages on bullfighting. It's always enjoyable to see someone passionate about something. Hemingway has some clear disdain for other writers, which is odd when it crops up. Last few pages are genius writing.
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shinbashi
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Simply stated... if you want to know about bullfighting in Spain...this is the book!
Hemingway provides the reader with a 'text book' on bullfighting along with his own personal thoughts and observations on same.
Hemingway takes you into the ring, explains the process completely, discusses the bulls and the matadors of the time and the 'art' of the bullfight along with what may be considered the plusses and minus.
Included are many pictures, some quite graphic, of the action as well as a glossary of bullfighting terms that goes on for eighty pages.
Its all here!
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SilencerSolar
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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An epic tome on the art and grandeur of Spanish bullfighting from one of America's greatest aficionados, Ernest Hemingway, who explicates the craft and spiritual intensity of this ancient European ritual through terse, journalistic, prose and rigorous scholarship. Not surprisingly, Hemingway is not terribly perturbed by the grotesque barbarity of the violence of bullfighting; Hemingway was an enthusiast of hunting and had little to no moral qualms about killing animals (and sometimes people). Yet he is not totally insensitive, warning the reader that most spectators of bullfighting are normally disgusted by the killing of the horses more than anything else.

For Hemingway, the bullfight is not meant to be understood as an equal battle between man and beast. Rather, it is a tragedy, and the tragedy is for the bull who ought to be killed. He writes, "The best of all fighting bulls have a quality, called nobility by the Spanish, which is the most extraordinary part of the whole business" (113), yet Hemingway does not provide any comment on the utter absurdity of the whole business. Hemingway was a writer obsessed with, and in search of true courage in the face of natural danger and fate, and he found it most explicitly in war and in bullfighting.

However, some readers will be surprised to find that `Death in the Afternoon,' is not simply about bullfighting. Hemingway also expounds quite at length about his views on art and the craft of writing. He says: "When writing a novel, a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature" (191). Unfortunately, Hem was never fully successful at creating a living woman, but every writer has a weakness. "A serious writer may be a hawk or a buzzard or even a popinjay, but a solemn writer is always a bloody owl" (192).

Also included in this altogether excellent volume is a collection of stunning photographs depicting various stages of the bullfight and various matadors of fame; there are also fascinating portraits of the running of the bulls in Pamplona (echoing those fabulous sequences in `The Sun also Rises'). Additionally, Hemingway has provided the reader with a detailed glossary of important bullfighting terms for true aficionados. Originally published through Scribner in 1932
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hazer324
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Quisiera ser Hemingway para hablar de temas polémicos. Jamás me ha llamado la atención la tauromaquia pero tampoco he querido entrar al debate con la gente que opina a favor o en contra. Por eso, juzgar este libro desde la perspectiva moderna que se tiene de los toros puede resultar una mala idea.

Después de leer "Muerte en la tarde", uno puede darse cuenta de que el asunto ha sido polémico desde hace muchisimo tiempo. En la época de Hemingway había intentos por parte del gobierno español de cancelar las corridas de toros y sin embargo, ¿qué hace Hemingway al respecto? se declara apasionado de la fiesta y escribe un libro que, más que una apología, es un intento de explicar su pasión por los toros y sus puntos de vista como observador extranjero.

Hemingway en ningún momento trata de convencerte que te gusten los toros. Es más, comprende perfectamente que a la gente no le gusten y respeta sus gustos. El problema quizá es que le gusta algo que moralmente es mal visto por mucha gente y sin embargo, no se acobarda en dar sus puntos de vista y tratar de explicar paso por paso el ritual de toros y toreros.

Es definitivamente una lectura que vale la pena para todos, pro taurinos o no.
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dbzakj
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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4.5 stars...

Amazing prose, beautifuly written book...

Before death in the afternoon I knew nothing about bullfighting and all the tradition and honor that lays behind such an ancient spanish tradition.

With Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway shows his point at defending this whole violent world of matadores, picadores, banderilleros and toros de lidia and I respect him for that.

In my opinion, the book is enjoyable not for the topic but for the arguments of this great author...
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Black_Knight0
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Hemingway ocupa un lugar especial en la lista de la gente que he leído. Puede decirse que tanto "El viejo y el mar" como "Por quién doblan las campanas" (una de las novelas más bellas y fuertes que he leído) supieron orientar mis primeros pasos en el mundo de la lectura. Desgraciadamente, no siempre todo lo que se muestra a los ojos brilla con la fuerza del oro. En este caso, "Muerte en la tarde" (que, dicho sea, es el primer libro que he leído de él en inglés) me pareció un libro pobre: un relato que no termina de definirse entre diario de corridas, crónica gonzo y folletín de turismo. De hecho, me entristeció bastante leer a este Hemingway: un tipo triste, sin gracia...sin mucho para decir al lector universal (porque, tal vez, al amante de los toros este libro puede llegar a fascinarle. A pesar de su precariedad narrativa).

Si bien soy de los que considera que la literatura debe disfrutarse independientemente de los principios morales que un libro o un autor defiendan (debiendo siempre evaluarse una obra en términos narrativos), si un escritor expone sus argumentos y pretende convencer a alguien de su postura, el texto se convierte en un diálogo en el que el lector debe asumir un rol muchísimo más activo. En este sentido, las premisas de Hemingway para la defensa de las corridas de toros (pobres en términos morales, interesantes en cuanto a datos e información sobre esa forma de asesinato) me enfrentaron a alguien casi tan prejuicioso y provinciano como Jack Kerouac. Con todo y que Kerouac fue a México de vacaciones y creyó conocer toda América bajo la bandera de franjas rojas y blancas y estrellas sobrepuestas al fondo azul.

Ojalá lo que vuelva a leer de Hemingway esté a la par de "El viejo y el mar" o de "Por quién doblan las campanas", libros que siento cada vez más distantes cuando menciono al escritor americano y espero a la primera idea sobre su literatura.
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Gardia
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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The most important book on bullfighting ever written in the English language and perhaps of all time. Hemingway is able to describe such a divisive topic with flare, while never losing sight of the technicality that is bullfighting. If Matador and Bull are both special, the fight will be pure art.

“Bullfighting is the only art in which the artist is in danger of death and in which the degree of brilliance in the performance is left to the fighter’s honor.”
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