Mercedes Ballesteros (1913–1995)

Mercedes Ballesteros was one of the pen names of Mercedes Ballesteros Gaibrois, born in Madrid, Spain. She also used the pseudonyms Rocq Morris, Sylvia Visconti, and Baroness Alberta in different literary genres. Her parents were the prominent Spanish historians and academics Antonio Ballesteros Beretta and Mercedes Gaibrois Riaño. She studied philosophy and literature, and wrote poetry, novels, crime novels, essays, biographies, and humorous works, and did translations. She married Claudio de la Torre, a writer and film director, with whom she lived in the Canary Islands during the Spanish Civil War.