Five fictionalized stories about different aspects of bullfighting, nine informative annexes about other realities of the festival, 175 drawings by the author himself and 750 pages make up the book titled Bulls for anti-bullfightingwritten by the novelist Miguel Aranguren (Madrid, 1970) and edited by Homo Legens.
The work, an encyclopedic treatise on modern bullfighting, has a prologue by the bullfighter Diego Urdiales, and aims to make an exhaustive analysis of the presence of bulls in an urban society immersed in rapid technological evolution. The author maintains that the book is aimed at fans, occasional spectators and, especially, those who do not like or are interested in the party, from the conviction that only through knowledge of the multiple vertices of this spectacle is it possible to understand it. and love him.
Hence, the book includes five stories in which Aranguren delves into such fundamental aspects as the bull, the bullfight or bullfighting. To do this, he tells the story of a pardoned bull and his rancher; that of a modest bullfighter and his wife; that of a young university student with no bullfighting tradition who, to the surprise of his family, feels the vocation to become a bullfighter; that of a bullfighter who does the Americas in the harshest version of him, and that of a woman who works in an animalist political party.
Likewise, Aranguren dedicates different annexes to delve into the qualities of the fighting bull, the history of bullfighting, the most important squares and fairs, the dynasties, the bullfighting lexicon, the reissue of a chronicle signed by Alejandro Dumas about a bullfight that he witnessed in Madrid, and the testimonies of numerous figures about the festival, such as Alfonso X the Wise, the actor James Dean, Elvis Presley, Francis Bacon or Albert Camus.
Bulls for anti-bullfighting It is illustrated by 175 drawings by the author himself, who is also fond of painting and sculpture. “The book touches all the genres,” says Aranguren, “it invites reflection and tries to show that bullfighting is compatible with an advanced world like ours.”