Mercedes Leyshon was born in Spain and spent her childhood and adolescence in French Colonial Africa and was educated at The Lycée de Jeunes Filles in Casablanca.
Her links with Spain and North Africa remain strong and go back to her great great great grandfather William Butler, born in 1775, known as the ‘Merchant of Cádiz’ whose father had emigrated from Ballinakill, Ireland. It was her great great grandfather Jacobo Alejandro Butler born in Tangier in 1826, who, becoming the first Butler to adopt Spanish citizenship, was appointed Spanish vice-consul to Mazagan in Morocco, where the family settled and where her father, Eduardo, was born.
Her maternal uncle was imprisoned in one of Franco’s jails at the onset of the Civil War and more recently her cousin Enrique Valdevira was one of the five ‘martyrs’ of the so-called ‘Matanza de Atocha’ (The Atocha Massacre) assassinated by the extreme right in Madrid on the 24th January 1977. It was the death of these five young syndicalist lawyers which hastened the process of democratisation in Spain
Mercedes came to London after the declaration of Independence in Morocco, trained as a nurse and later as a midwife in Scotland. She married, had two children and became a mature student, graduating with a B.A. (Hons) in Latin American Studies, Spanish and French literature at Leeds University. She produced a thesis on Goya and has written papers on Federico Garcia Lorca, Julio Cortazar and Luis Martin Santos.
She taught A level French at Wakefield high security prison and Spanish language and literature, part -time, at the University of Leeds, while pursuing an M Phil on the Eastern influence on the works of Luis Martin Santos. Her interest in Philosophy, Metaphysics and the nature of the soul led her to train in Esoteric Studies at the Lucis Trust in London. She has a long affiliation with ‘World Goodwill’ an international and educational movement, that helps build Right Human Relations and is recognised by the United Nations as a Non Governmental Organisation.
She is now retired and is a grandmother to four grandsons. She lives with her husband in the Scottish Highlands, migrating to Andalucia for the winter where she is currently planning a book of short stories.
The Aleppo is her first novel.
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