Death in the Afternoon

“All stories, if continued far enough, end in death.”

Ernest Hemingway’s love letter to bullfighting is one of the strangest and most fascinating books ever written by a major American novelist—a meditation on courage, spectacle, and the one thing that gives life meaning: the certainty that it will end.

Hemingway first saw bullfighting in Spain in the 1920s and became obsessed. Death in the Afternoon is part technical manual (he explains the difference between a verónica and a media verónica, the role of the picador, the banderillero, and the matador), part philosophical treatise (he argues that bullfighting is a tragedy, not a sport), part war correspondence (he describes the moment of death with the same cold eye he brought to the Spanish Civil War), and part memoir. He includes a glossary of Spanish terms, a chapter on “The Death of a Matador,” and a series of photographs of bullfighters in the ring—some of them dead. The book is also famously, infuriatingly, a conversation with an imaginary “Old Lady,” whom Hemingway bullies, lectures, and occasionally charms.

This is Hemingway at his most obsessive and idiosyncratic: a book about the art of facing death without flinching, written by a man who would spend his entire life testing his own courage. Death in the Afternoon is not for everyone—but for those who love it, it is indispensable.

• Published in 1932, following the success of A Farewell to Arms (1929)

• Hemingway’s only full-length work of nonfiction about bullfighting

• Includes a famous passage about writing: “If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about, he may omit things that he knows... The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water.”

Available in multiple formats:

• Paperback & Hardcover: Beautifully designed print editions presenting the complete, unabridged text made to last.

• Ebook: DRM-free EPUB compatible with Kindle, Kobo, Apple Books, and all major e-readers.

• Audiobook: Professionally narrated, complete and unabridged, available on all major audiobook platforms.

A beautifully crafted edition for your shelf, your device, or your ears, or the perfect gift for anyone who knows that the only thing worth watching is the thing that can kill you.

About the Author

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) was an American novelist, short story writer, and journalist, widely regarded as one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century. Born in Oak Park, Illinois, he served as an ambulance driver on the Italian front in World War I—an experience that shaped his worldview. Death in the Afternoon was his first major work of nonfiction, written after he had established himself as a novelist with The Sun Also Rises (1926) and A Farewell to Arms (1929). Hemingway was a lifelong aficionado of bullfighting, attending hundreds of corridas over several decades. The book’s title refers to the time of day when bullfights traditionally end—the “hour of truth” when the matador faces the bull alone. Hemingway’s other major works include For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940) and The Old Man and the Sea (1952). He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. He died by suicide in 1961.