DEATH IN THE AFTERNOON

Still considered one of the best books ever written about bullfighting, this book reflects Ernest Hemingway's conviction that bullfighting was more than mere sport, and reveals a rich source of inspiration for his fiction. The drama of bullfighting, with its rigorous combination of athleticism and artistry and its requisite display of grace under pressure, ignited Hemingway's imagination. 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." Writing in a terse, stripped-down style, first as a reporter and then a novelist, Hemingway was an enormously influential author from the 1920s through the 50s, and won both the Pulitzer and Nobel Prizes. J.D. Salinger, Hunter S. Thompson, Charles Bukowski, and Jack Kerouac all acknowledged their indebtedness to him, as did non-authors like artist Edward Hopper, whose Nighthawks at the Diner was inspired in part by Hemingway's short stories.