Mercedes Duque Espiau (Seville, 1996) is a writer, anthropologist, and educator. She studied the Master’s degree in Creative Writing at the Complutense University of Madrid from 2021 to 2022. She is currently a creative writing teacher and collaborates with the cultural magazines La Elocuente and Mercurio.

She is the author of Los días breves (Verbum, 2023), the winning book of the III Juan Ruiz de Torres International Short Story Contest. She has also been published in the anthology of the 4th Narrative Contest of the La Balandra Foundation and in the magazine Invernadero.

In early 2025, the Tusquets publishing house will publish her first novel, Animales pequeños, which she worked on during her residency at Can Serrat.

Mercedes Duque Espiau is in residence during May-June 2024.

*Photo taken by artist Gizem Karakaş, resident at Can Serrat.