Los Toros: Photographs by Michael Crouser. Introduction by Mario Vargas Llosa

Over the course of sixteen years, Michael Crouser visited the bullrings of Spain, Mexico, Ecuador and France, capturing the dark spectacle of the bullfights and the passions of the crowds who follow them. Select images from a mutitude of bullfights have been sequenced to create a singular, compelling fight ina narrative form. The book features an introduction in English and Spanish by renowned Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa, recounting the childhood memories of his first corrida de toros, while also reflecting upon his personal philosophy on the contemporary bullfight. "Courage, nonetheless, is not truly the heart and soul of bullfighting. Its very center may well be fear. Fear - the most human of emotions - the matador must keep in check, channel, gradually overcome and forget as his knowledge and his art progressively dominate his antagonist and subject him to his will, to his game and to his spell, until he succeeds in creating the illusion that all danger has evaporated, that what began as a challenge of blood and death has become a dance, ceremony, sculpture, theater, ritual."