A historical, cultural, psychoanalytic and anthropological journey through the myth of the werewolf.

Popularized by cinema, the legend of the werewolf has its roots in classic mythology and literature. There are references to lycanthropy in Gilgamesh, in Herodotus, Ovid, Petronius... The myth mutates over the centuries and nobles appear transformed into wolves in the Middle Ages and later demonic lycanthropes appear. This book traces his presence in the folklore and popular tales of Grimm and Perrault, in nineteenth-century horror literature, and in his various representations in cinema (including the Waldemar Daninsky created and obsessively played by Jacinto Molina—known as Paul Naschy—or the varied incarnations of the werewolf in Mexican horror cinema of the Golden Age).

The werewolf is a character linked to the ideas of metamorphosis, transformation and duality, who explores animality, savagery and evil; a figure charged with sexuality, eroticism and desire, with multiple faces that allow multiple readings. This book approaches it from complementary angles—historical, cultural, psychoanalytic, anthropological—and reveals all its complexity and richness. Roger Bartra analyzes it at length, with a brilliant mix of erudition and entertainment.

«One of the few Mexican intellectuals who, in the academic environment of the social sciences, has managed to dialogue with himself, becoming author and critic, writer and reader, subject and object of his permeable anthropological meditation» (Rafael Rojas, Letras Libres) .

«Bartra places us at the doors of a new critical space» (Christopher Domínguez Michael, Proceso).