Mercedes Aguirre Castro
Email: macics@yahoo.co.uk
Mercedes Aguirre is a scholar who works on Greek mythology. She is also a writer of novels and short stories.
She was born in Madrid. She has a doctorate in Classical Philology and is Honorary Professor at the Universidad Complutense in Madrid. She is currently an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Bristol, and has been elected a Life Member at Clare Hall in the University of Cambridge.
Research
As a university teacher her areas of published research (in both Spanish and English) are: Greek literature, Greek mythology and iconography, and the reception of Greek mythology in the contemporary world. Among her scholarly articles are those on:
- Scylla (PDF, 1 MB)
- the Gorgons
- sea monsters
- ghosts
- female characters in the Odyssey
- studies of particular myths and their reception in art
She has also authored a book on the Pre-Raphaelites, especially on those of their mythological paintings which focus on female characters.
Mercedes explains how her stories explore both Classical and Pre-Raphaelite themes, on the Pre-Raphaelite Podcast.
Listen to Mercedes and Richard Buxton discuss Cyclopes in Greek Mythology, and their book Cyclops: The Myth and its Cultural History on the Ithaca Bound Podcast, 4th June 2021.
Recent articles
Novels and short stories
Mercedes is the co-author of a series of books, all published by Ediciones de la Torre, which retell the Greek myths:
- Cuentos de la mitología
- Cuentos de la magia griega
- Cuentos del teatro griego
- Cuentos de la filosofía griega
- Basque myths: Cuentos de la mitología vasca
- Celtic myths: Cuentos de la mitología celta
She is also the author of several books of fiction which have been inspired by Greek mythology but which are situated in our contemporary world:
- Nuestros mitos de cada día (shortlisted in the Éride Ediciones Literary Prize)
- the novel El narrador de cuentos
- a new version of the collection of short stories Nuestros mitos de cada dia with the title: Relatos míticos del mundo cotidiano/Mythical Tales of the Everyday World (in a bilingual Spanish-English book) published by Éride Ediciones.
- El cuadro inacabado
- Short story La pared, which was shortlisted in the Concurso Internacional de Cuentos Ediciones de la Torre.
- Short story Verdades y mentiras, published in Proyecto Sherezade, University of Manitoba
- Novel Vidas, historias y cafés
Her latest novels are Sangre de centauro and Las cabezas de la hidra.
She won the 1st Literary Competition Corcel Negro with her book La pared y otros cuentos de lo extraño y lo sobrenatural.
Read “The Mannequin’s Tale” (PDF, 115 kB) (published in Spanish in: Mercedes Aguirre La pared y otros cuentos de lo extraño y lo sobrenatural, translated into English by Richard Buxton).
Read short story “Los que salen de noche” (in Spanish) published by Proyecto Sherezade, University of Manitoba (Canada).
Read short story “La casa cambiante” (in Spanish) by Mercedes Aguirre (PDF, 308 kB).
Creative writing
Amongst other activites, Mercedes runs workshops and courses on creative writing.
See profile at the Escritores Complutenses in Madrid