On Bullfighting

Description

A. L. Kennedy's highly acclaimed reflections on the bloodiest of the blood sports - 'as artful as a matador's final pass' (Esquire). Bullfighting - the ultimate spectator sport. Acclaimed novelist A. L. Kennedy unpeels the layers and explains the mechanics before dissecting them with surgical precision. Beyond the theatre, the costume and the well-worn plot she focuses on the fact that a man faces his death while a crowd looks on. The result is a startling confrontation with her own, and mankind's, mortality.

A. L. Kennedy has twice been selected as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists and has won a host of other awards - including the Costa Book of the Year for her novel Day. She lives in Essex.

One of the best books of the year -- Jeanette Winterson On Bullfighting casts an unofficial eye over a world of male exploit; the public spectacles are treated with a fresh particularity, the inner landscapes of pain with an ardent, high-risk honesty -- Julain Barnes Informative, minutely observed and beautifully written * Independent * An ecclectic and fascinating cultural history * Observer * A strange and beautiful book -- Michael Ignatieff