From Hemingway to Pamplona, professor keeps running with the bulls

Bill Hillmann has been gored three times in Spain and still keeps returning to Pamplona, the city that first seized his imagination when he read Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises at 19. Hillmann has said the novel was the first book he ever read in one sitting, and that it pushed him toward both writing and bull running.

His own website describes him as an author, professor, journalist, bull-run guide, speaker, storyteller and writer’s retreat instructor. Hillmann is now a full-time English and communication professor at East-West University in Chicago. He earned a master of fine arts in writing from Columbia College Chicago in 2013 and a PhD in English from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in 2022.

The pull of Pamplona remains potent because the run is as choreographed as it is dangerous. The running of the bulls is part of the Fiesta de San Fermín, held each morning from July 7 through July 14. Britannica says about 2,000 people line up each day to cover the 875-meter course, with six fighting bulls, accompanied by steers, guided along the route.

That mix of ritual and risk has kept the event in the global spotlight for generations, and Hemingway’s novel has been central to that image. Published in 1926, The Sun Also Rises reached its 100th anniversary in 2026, renewing attention on the book that helped put Pamplona on the map for millions of readers and popularized the idea of the lost generation.

The danger is not abstract. Britannica says there have been 15 recorded deaths in the Pamplona run since records began in 1910. Sanfermin.com lists Daniel Jimeno Romero as the most recent fatality, in 2009. A file photo from July 9, 2014 showed Hillmann, then 35, being gored on his right leg by a Victoriano del Río bull in Pamplona.

Even after that injury, Hillmann said he has run with the bulls in Spain hundreds of times, counting Pamplona and dozens of smaller towns. His career now sits at the intersection Hemingway made famous: a literary romance with danger, and a real-world tradition that continues to exact a physical price.