Alexander Rupert Fiske-Harrison (born 22 July 1976) is an English author, journalist, conservationist and bullfighter.
His writing is known for his immersion in his subject matter. He trained and worked for some years as a Method actor. For his first book Into The Arena: The World Of The Spanish Bullfight he became a bullfighter. For his second, The Bulls Of Pamplona, he became a bull-runner.
In 2011 he was shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year for Into The Arena, his fiction "Les Invincibles" was a finalist in Le Prix Hemingway International in France in 2016, and his work "The Feldkirch Crossing", was shortlisted for the Mogford Prize of the Financial Times Weekend Oxford Literary Festival in 2021.
Background and personal life
He is the youngest son of Clive Fiske Harrison. His brother Jules William Fiske Harrison was, according to The Times, a "skilled and fearless skier" who died in a skiing accident in Zermatt, Switzerland in 1988.
He was educated at Eton and the University of Oxford, followed by The London School of Economics and Political Science and the University of London. He studied biological sciences, and then philosophy, politics and economics (PPE), before doing postgraduate work in the foundations of physics on the relationship between quantum theory and classical logic and then consciousness studies incorporating work in both foundations of psychology and animal behaviour.
He trained at the acting school, the Stella Adler Conservatory in New York City, when Marlon Brando was its chairman. (He was consultant on the Academy Award-nominated Universal Pictures' documentary on Brando, Listen To Me Marlon).
Fiske-Harrison is engaged to be married to Klarina Pichler, a professional polo player from Austria and captain of Las Sacras Romanas - 'The Holy Romans' - an international polo team. She is a descendant of Baron Leonhard Pichler von Weitenegg of the old Swabian nobility Lord of Hornstein and Seibersdorf and Councillor of the Court Chamber to Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I.
Journalism
Fiske-Harrison has written for newspapers and magazines including The Times, Financial Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Times Literary Supplement, GQ, and The Spectator, magazines and has been himself featured in the society pages of the Telegraph, Evening Standard and Condé Nast's Tatler.
He has been interviewed and provided commentary on broadcast media outlets including the BBC, CNN, Al-Jazeera, Discovery Channel, US National Public Radio. and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation National Radio.
He has also written in Spanish for ABC and El Norte de Castilla and has been himself featured in the society pages of ABC and¡Hola! magazine (Spanish parent of Hello! magazine.)
Conservation
Fiske-Harrison has written on wolves and dogs, cattle and horses, and apes. He often focuses on human perception of, and interaction with, animals.
Spain
Bullfighting
An essay on bullfighting for Prospect magazine in September 2008 led Fiske-Harrison to move to Spain to further research the topic. He lived, trained and fought alongside matadors including Juan José Padilla, Cayetano Rivera Ordóñez – whose father Paquirri was killed in the ring, and grandfather Antonio Ordóñez the subject of Hemingway's The Dangerous Summer – and Eduardo Dávila Miura of the Miura bull family. He wrote about his experiences on his blog The Last Arena: In Search of the Spanish Bullfight.
Into The Arena: The World Of The Spanish Bullfight
In 2011 Profile Books published his Into The Arena: The World of the Spanish Bullfight. The Sunday Times said that "it provides an engrossing introduction to Spain's 'great feast of art and danger'".
In answer to Animal Welfare and Animal Rights concerns, the Financial Times said, "it's to Fiske-Harrison's credit that he never quite gets over his moral qualms about bullfighting."
Bull-running
As part of his research in 2009, Fiske-Harrison began running with the bulls in Pamplona, and became a part of the 'Runners Team of the World', and continued to do it across the rest of Spain, including the encierros, 'bull-runs', of the Navarran towns of Tafalla and Falces, where the run is down a mountain path beside a sheer drop called "El Pilón"- in the municipality of San Sebastián de los Reyes and the ancient castle of Cuéllar in Old Castile, which hosts the oldest encierro in Spain, and where he was awarded a prize for writing about the encierros in 2013.