50th Anniversary of Hemingway's suicide

This year is the 50th anniversary of Hemingway's death, almost a week before of the start of his most loved festival, Sanfermines, which have been made famous worldwide thanks to the American writer.

His wife and himself arrived in Pamplona in 1923 for first time, when Ernest Heminway was working as a correspondent in Europe for the Canadian newspaper Toronto Star.

From the very beginning, Hemingway was shocked by the atmosphere of Sanfermines and he realized it was the most awesome festival in the world. He was right, as he used to, because Sanfermines is unique in the world and the only way to say that is to live the fiesta in Pamplona.

Hemingway arrive in Pamplona to discover the truth as part of an article to describe the madness of running in front of six bulls in the streets of a lost city, Pamplona, in the north of a semi-known country, Spain.The author of the Sun also rises not only saw that it was right, but he also found something else, much more than the expected.Thenceforth, Ernest fell in love ,like a mad lover, with our festival, he could ever forget them and he visited us eight more times.

“The sun also rises” (“Fiesta”)is published in 1926, and as any Navarrian must know, inspired and starred in the Sanfermines of those years. It is considered his first best-seller, even when that word was not in use that period, and made Sanfermines become famous worldwide.

The Literature nobel prize winner of 1954 was year after year more famous in the city and we paid tribute to his figure in Pamplona too. When Ernest Hemingway visited Pamplona, he used to stay in Hotel La Perla, in Plaza del Castillo. Now you can also stay in the famous room 217 and see the encierro live.

Now a guiri, the well-known word to define the foreigner in Sanfermines, can visit places in Pamplona like the tavern El Txoko, café Iruña or Torino thanks to the famous novel of Hemingway. There the writer used to meet his friends to eat and drink the tipical Navarrian products.

He never ran in front of the bulls, as most of his fellow countrymen do now, what they should avoid for the best of the Sanfermines. Anyway, he enjoyed the view of the running of the bulls from the kitchen of the old Hotel Maisonnave in the famous Estafeta street, and of course, he watched the bullfighting in the Pamplona bull ring.

We can't know how famous Sanfermines would be if Hemingway hadn't discovered for the entire world in 1923, but it is clear that without the author of "Fiesta" Sanfermines would not be the same nowadays.