Andrés Amorós talks to Enrique Ponce

France protects bullfighting as an element culture, while in Spain prohibition of bullfighting looms over Catalonia. This year Hay Festival welcomes an unusual cultural debate, and to do so has enlisted speakers with first hand knowledge. As a cornerstone from which books have been made, bullfighting finds its roots in the myths of our culture and brings depth of meaning to our life and our place in the world as well as our relationship with nature and death. The bull has been a constant in the art of our culture from the time of the bison in cave paintings. ABC critic Andrés Amorós, an expert in bullfighting history and literature, interviews matador Enrique Ponce to shed light on this debate.

 

There is a lot of talk about bulls in Spain and in certain Latin American countries with a bullfighting history, and there are strong voices in the world of culture who defend the values of this tradition. Film, literature and philosophy find reasons for the survival of this spectacle that can be at once a festival, an art, a barbaric encounter or a way of life. Film maker Agustín Díaz Yanes, French philosopher Francis Wolff, Regional Minister of Agriculture and Livestock of the Junta de Castilla y León Silvia Clemente, and the bullfighting journalist Rosario Pérez debate along with Spanish journalist Paco Aguado. Chaired by Ignacio Bazarra, Culture editor at EFE agency.