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Born into poverty, Juan Gallardo knows what it means to struggle and survive. He rises to become one of the nation’s greatest bullfighters, a man for whom danger is merely an opportunity to showcase his talent. As lovers and fans flock to his side, Juan learns a new kind of danger. Blood and Sand is a novel by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez.
About the author
Vicente Blasco Ibáñez (1867-1928) was a Spanish novelist, journalist, and political activist. Born in Valencia, he studied law at university, graduating in 1888. As a young man, he founded the newspaper
El Pueblo and gained a reputation as a militant Republican. After a series of court cases over his controversial publication, he was arrested in 1896 and spent several months in prison. A staunch opponent of the Spanish monarchy, he worked as a proofreader for Filipino nationalist José Rizal's groundbreaking novel
Noli Me Tangere (1887). Blasco Ibáñez's first novel,
The Black Spider (1892), was a pointed critique of the Jesuit order and its influence on Spanish life, but his first major work,
Airs and Graces (1894), came two years later. For the next decade, his novels showed the influence of Émile Zola and other leading naturalist writers, whose attention to environment and social conditions produced work that explored the struggles of working-class individuals. His late career, characterized by romance and adventure, proved more successful by far.
Blood and Sand (1908),
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1916), and
Mare Nostrum (1918) were all adapted into successful feature length films by such directors as Fred Niblo and Rex Ingram.
