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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.

null pages,

First published January 1,1932
Places
spain, 

This edition

Format
null pages,
Published
January 1, 1932 by Scribner's Sons (NY)
ISBN
9780084850487
ASIN
0084850485
Language

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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)
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34(34%)
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99 reviews All reviews
Profile Image for Kimberly .
hypertreb
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
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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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Gerbilcity
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
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Fascinatingly morbid yet uniquely engrossing, except when it became redundantly boring. All I can figure is that Hemingway really wanted to be a bullfighter, though I am not sure "Bull Fighter" is the correct term for this activity, "Ritualistic and Methodical Bull Torturer and Slaughterer" seems more appropriate from what I read in this book.

The book does give a very in depth look at Spanish bullfighting in the 1920's and 1930's. The bull fighters of this time are all analyzed by Hemingway, as well as their techniques. My old, hardcover, 1932 copy even contained over 120 pages of black and white photos with descriptions, of the animals, the bullfighters, and the action, including goring and death. A huge glossary of terms at the back of the book also shows Hemingway's unique interpretation of not only the language and terminology of bull fighting, but of Spanish slang. (And by Hemingway's defining of the word Maricon I now see that he was a bit homophobic.)

The book also includes Hemingway telling of the reactions of many people he attended the bull fights with, identifying them only by sex, initials, and age, telling who enjoyed it, who hated it, and why. At the very end of the book, Hemingway also included a short biography of an American bull fighter, Sidney Franklin, who I now have found wrote his own book about his experiences being a bull fighter.

In the end, I am coming away with a curious wondering as to why Hemingway wrote this non-fiction book. All I can figure is that he was really fascinated by the activity, by the fighters, by the culture. He appears to have attended numerous fights. Maybe he wished to be a bull fighter himself, and since he couldn't be one, critiquing and analyzing them, and giving his own interpretation of them made him feel important.
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NightWig
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
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As much as I loved Hemingway, I couldn’t finish this. Hemingway encourages his readers to go to a bullfight around a third of the way into the book so they could understand all that he was describing. I went to YouTube. It has been haunting me all day. I tried to continue reading the book after I saw what bullfighting consists of, and of course Hemingway was able to make it rich, meaningful, and beautiful. But that’s just it, I didn’t want it to be those things. It isn’t. Bullfighting is so cruel, excessive, unnecessary. I know it is meaningful for a lot of people, even the men who get gored or lose their lives in the bullring, but I don't think it is beautiful for the bulls who are tortured and lose theirs.
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muntasir123
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
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A brutal subject our modern ethos would neither condone nor want to face and discuss, drilled into for it’s essence and to find the beauty and art in the repeated gory tragedies of the bull fight. On top we have a thinly vailed long love letter to Spain and its people.

In all, this was a delicious exquisite paella which brought joy with every bite. The last chapter is a classic in writing.

Loved it.
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Leiah_tr
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
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This is one of those books where you may go in and not get what you're expecting. It turns out that this feels like an *avant-garde* travel book from the 1930s. Sure, it describes bullfighting, and the big names of the time, and the recent development of the sport; but more than that, it becomes a exposition on the nature of artistry (for bullfighting is an art) and of writing itself. You will see the chapters twist toward a vignette--a memory of the War, a memory of his time in Spain--quickly and unexpectedly, as if the narration were suddenly thrown aside by the skillful sweep of a matador (or, more likely, by the bull). In this sense the memoir aspect anticipates A Moveable Feast.

More than anything, read it for Hemingway's pearls of wisdom, and for seeing him at his finest in the ring.
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feemboyshunter
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
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A treatise on bullfighting, Hemingway showcases his expertise, love, and passion for the sport by detailing every aspect. Not an overall stimulating book, but a deeply knowledgeable novel from a man extraordinarily passionate about the sport, and country, he loves.
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TrashMan
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 25,2025
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“Find what gave you emotion; what the action was that gave you excitement. Then write it down making it clear so that the reader can see it too. Prose is architecture, not interior decoration, and the Baroque is over.”

“The cynical ones are the best companions. But the best of all are the cynical ones when they are still devout; or after; when having been devout, then cynical, they become devout again by cynicism.”
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