Querencia

Querencia is a metaphysical concept in the Spanish language. The term comes from the Spanish verb "querer," which means "to desire." Querencia describes a place where one feels safe, a place from which one's strength of character is drawn, a place where one feels at home.

In bullfighting, a bull may stake out his querencia, a certain part of the bull ring where he feels strong and safe. Ernest Hemingway's 1932 nonfiction book Death in the Afternoon ^[1] describes the querencia in this context:

A querencia is a place the bull naturally wants to go to in the ring, a preferred locality... It is a place which develops in the course of the fight where the bull makes his home. It does not usually show at once, but develops in his brain as the fight goes on. In this place he feels that he has his back against the wall and in his querencia he is inestimably more dangerous and almost impossible to kill.

— Ernest Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon

References

1. Hemingway, Ernest (2003) [1932]. Death in the Afternoon (1st Scribner trade pbk. ed.). New York, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. ISBN 978-0-684-80145-2. OCLC 53453017.