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The San Fermín festival, which features a daily running of the bulls, is one of Spain’s best-known celebrations, drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors to the northern city of Pamplona each year.
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of Ernest Hemingway’s novel The Sun Also Rises, which launched the future Nobel laureate to literary fame and put Pamplona on the map for millions of people around the world.
Six bulls are released at 8 a.m. every day for eight days to run from their corral to the bullring through the narrow streets of the old town — an 850-metre course — while runners ahead of them try to stay close to the bulls without falling over or being gored.
(Jorge Guerrero/AFP/Getty Images)
The event also features parades, music, religious ceremonies and round-the-clock street festivities.
On Monday, the festival kicked off with a fireworks blast over a jam-packed plaza.
(Miguel Oses/The Associated Press)
Here, revellers cheer alongside the municipal band.
(Vincent West/Reuters)
Running with bulls is a cherished local custom for Spanish daredevils, and not restricted to Pamplona. Here, participants jump into the sea as a bull runs at them during the traditional Bulls in the Sea event at Denia’s harbour, near Alicante, on July 6.
(Jose Jordan/AFP/Getty Images)
Dallas-based tour operator Bruce Anderson, whose company Running of the Bulls has helped thousands of Americans attend San Fermin over the years, says that Hemingway’s work made the festival a bucket-list destination. This year, his company is bringing 1,400 people to the festival.
Pamplona has 200,000 residents and receives over a million more people for the festival. Below, a young cow jumps over participants on July 7.
(Cesar Manso/AFP/Getty Images)
The last of the festival’s 16 deaths came in 2009, but gorings and other injuries are common. Novice runners can easily panic and make a wrong move that can cause a pileup or send someone into the path of a bull, like this reveller on July 9.
(Miguel Oses/Reuters)
Later in the day, the bulls are killed by professional bullfighters. Here, a bullfighter falls on July 7.
(Miguel Oses/The Associated Press)
Hemingway has drawn criticism from the animal rights movement for his praise of bullfighters, who kill the bulls by stabbing.
Groups like the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals also decry the way the bulls are treated as they move through the streets.
Animal welfare activist Brook Spurling said during a protest against the San Fermin bullfights that “Hemingway wrote about many, many themes that today would not be accepted [in] society. He writes about hunting, about war, and we don’t want to be appreciating these themes today.”