Fondo de Cultura Económica
Encyclopedia
Fondo de Cultura Económica (FCE, Fondo) is the most important publishing house in Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
and one of the most important ones in Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
. It was originally established in 1934 by Daniel Cosío Villegas
Daniel Cosío Villegas
Daniel Cosío Villegas was a prominent Mexican economist, essayist, historian and diplomat.Cosío Villegas was born in Mexico City. After studying one year in engineering and two years of philosophy, he received a B.A. in Law from the National University and took several courses in economics at...
as a way to provide students of economics
Economics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
with books in Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
on the subject. Little by little, FCE expanded its publishing areas to other subjects that today encompass almost everything, from children's literature to scientific texts. Fondo de Cultura Económica is a decentralized
Decentralization
__FORCETOC__Decentralization or decentralisation is the process of dispersing decision-making governance closer to the people and/or citizens. It includes the dispersal of administration or governance in sectors or areas like engineering, management science, political science, political economy,...
publishing institution funded by the Mexican government.
History
For more than 70 years, Fondo de Cultura Económica has been an active participant and protagonist of MexicanMexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
and Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
n literary and cultural history through its editors, authors, translations and books. Among those who have actively participated and influenced FCE's trajectory are names such as Alfonso Reyes
Alfonso Reyes
Alfonso Reyes Ochoa was a Mexican writer, philosopher and diplomat.-Early life:Alfonso Reyes parents were Bernardo Reyes and Aurelia Ochoa...
, Juan Rulfo
Juan Rulfo
Juan Rulfo was a Mexican author and photographer. One of Latin America's most esteemed authors, Rulfo's reputation rests on two slim books, the novel Pedro Páramo , and El Llano en llamas...
, Juan José Arreola
Juan José Arreola
Juan José Arreola Zúñiga was a Mexican writer and academic. He is considered Mexico's premier experimental short story writer of the twentieth century. Arreola is recognized as one of the first Latin American writers to abandon realism; he uses elements of fantasy to underscore existentialist and...
, Octavio Paz
Octavio Paz
Octavio Paz Lozano was a Mexican writer, poet, and diplomat, and the winner of the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature.-Early life and writings:...
, Carlos Fuentes
Carlos Fuentes
Carlos Fuentes Macías is a Mexican writer and one of the best-known living novelists and essayists in the Spanish-speaking world. He has influenced contemporary Latin American literature, and his works have been widely translated into English and other languages.-Biography:Fuentes was born in...
, Jorge Luis Borges
Jorge Luis Borges
Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo , known as Jorge Luis Borges , was an Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator born in Buenos Aires. In 1914 his family moved to Switzerland where he attended school, receiving his baccalauréat from the Collège de Genève in 1918. The family...
, Carlos Pellicer
Carlos Pellicer
Carlos Pellicer Cámara , born in Villahermosa, Tabasco, was part of the first wave of modernist Mexican poets and was heavily active in the promotion of Mexican art and literature...
, Raimundo Lida
Raimundo Lida
Raimundo Lida was an Argentine philologist, philosopher of language, literary critic and essayist. He specialised in Romance philology, the literature of the Spanish Golden Age and modernist literature. He taught at Harvard University from 1953, where he was chair of the department of Romance...
, José Gorostiza
José Gorostiza
' was a Mexican poet, educator, and diplomat. For his achievements in the poetic arts, he was made a member of the .-Biography: was born in the riverine city of , then known as , to and . His younger brother would also become an important artist. He moved to Mexico City to attend the National...
, Alí Chumacero
Ali Chumacero
Alí Chumacero Lora was a Mexican poet.-Career:Chumacero was born in Acaponeta, Nayarit. He was the joint editor of Tierra Nueva magazine from 1940-42. He edited Letras de México and El Hijo Pródigo....
, and Salvador Elizondo
Salvador Elizondo
Salvador Elizondo Alcalde was a Mexican writer of the 60s Generation of Mexican literature.Regarded as one of the creators of the most influential cult noirè, experimental, intelligent style literature in Latin America, he wrote as a novelist, poet, critic, playwright, and journalist...
, among many others.
Collections of books published by FCE
FCE's backlist encompasses more than 7,000 volumes, among which 5,000 (approx.) are still being published or reprinted. This great cultural wealth is grouped in many book collections, among which we can find:- A la Orilla del Viento
- Antropología
- Breviarios
- Colección Popular
- Economía
- Filosofía
- La Ciencia para Todos
- Letras Mexicanas
- Tezontle
FCE also publishes the following periodicals
Magazine
Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...
: El Trimestre Económico (an economic studies academic periodical), Diánoia (a philosophical studies academic periodical), La Gaceta del Fondo de Cultura Económica (articles about or around its books and authors, edited in México
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
as well as in Colombia
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
), Lecturas, and its Boletín de Novedades (news bulletin).
Recognitions and awards
As an institution, FCE has earned the Prince of Asturias AwardPrince of Asturias Awards
The Prince of Asturias Awards are a series of annual prizes awarded in Spain by the Prince of Asturias Foundation to individuals, entities or organizations from around the world who make notable achievements in the sciences, humanities, and public affairs....
in Media and Humanities in 1989, as well as the "Premio FILIJ del Libro" bestowed by the Mexican culture ministry for children's books in 1992.
In 1993, FCE received the Premio Laurel de Oro (bestowed by the city of Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
), a mention in the "Premio Juan García Bacca
Juan David García Bacca
Juan David García Bacca , was a Spanish-Venezuelan philosopher and university professor....
", awarded by the Association for Peruvian Culture, and the "Calendario Azteca de Oro" ("Golden Aztec Calendar
Aztec calendar
The Aztec calendar is the calendar system that was used by the Aztecs as well as other Pre-Columbian peoples of central Mexico. It is one of the Mesoamerican calendars, sharing the basic structure of calendars from throughout ancient Mesoamerica....
"), granted by the Association of Mexican TV and Radio Journalists).
FCE's CEOs
The following people have been Fondo de Cultura Económica's CEOs: Daniel Cosío VillegasDaniel Cosío Villegas
Daniel Cosío Villegas was a prominent Mexican economist, essayist, historian and diplomat.Cosío Villegas was born in Mexico City. After studying one year in engineering and two years of philosophy, he received a B.A. in Law from the National University and took several courses in economics at...
(1934-1947), Arnaldo Orfila Reynal
Arnaldo Orfila Reynal
Arnaldo Orfila Reynal was a Argentine chemist and academic....
(1948-1965), Salvador Azuela (1966-1970), Antonio Carrillo Flores
Antonio Carrillo Flores
Antonio Carrillo Flores was a Mexican statesman, born in Mexico City. He was the second son of composer Julián Carrillo Trujillo....
(1970-1972), Francisco Javier Alejo (1972-1974), Guillermo Ramírez Hernández (1974-1976), José Luis Martínez (1977-1982), Jaime García Terrés (1983-1988), Enrique González Pedrero
Enrique González Pedrero
Enrique González Pedrero is a Mexican politician, diplomat and writer. After a long-time militancy in the Institutional Revolutionary Party , he joined the Party of the Democratic Revolution in 1995....
(1989-1990), Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado (1990-2000), Gonzalo Celorio Blasco (2000-2002), Consuelo Sáizar Guerrero (2002-2008) and Joaquín Díez-Canedo Flores (2008-currently in office).
Central office
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
. Surrounded by gardens, the central office also has a cultural annex for lectures and events named after Jesús Silva Herzog
Jesús Silva Herzog
Jesús Silva Herzog Flores is a Mexican economist and politician affiliated to the Institutional Revolutionary Party...
, a library
Library
In a traditional sense, a library is a large collection of books, and can refer to the place in which the collection is housed. Today, the term can refer to any collection, including digital sources, resources, and services...
that keeps and maintains a copy of every book FCE has published for free consultation, and a bookstore named after Alfonso Reyes
Alfonso Reyes
Alfonso Reyes Ochoa was a Mexican writer, philosopher and diplomat.-Early life:Alfonso Reyes parents were Bernardo Reyes and Aurelia Ochoa...
.
Foreign branches
Besides its central office in Mexico, FCE has foreign branches in:- Buenos AiresBuenos AiresBuenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
(ArgentinaArgentinaArgentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
, 1945) - BogotáBogotáBogotá, Distrito Capital , from 1991 to 2000 called Santa Fé de Bogotá, is the capital, and largest city, of Colombia. It is also designated by the national constitution as the capital of the department of Cundinamarca, even though the city of Bogotá now comprises an independent Capital district...
(ColombiaColombiaColombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
) - São PauloSão PauloSão Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, the largest city in the southern hemisphere and South America, and the world's seventh largest city by population. The metropolis is anchor to the São Paulo metropolitan area, ranked as the second-most populous metropolitan area in the Americas and among...
(BrazilBrazilBrazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
, 1991) - LimaLimaLima is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín rivers, in the central part of the country, on a desert coast overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Together with the seaport of Callao, it forms a contiguous urban area known as the Lima...
(PeruPeruPeru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
, 1975) - CaracasCaracasCaracas , officially Santiago de León de Caracas, is the capital and largest city of Venezuela; natives or residents are known as Caraquenians in English . It is located in the northern part of the country, following the contours of the narrow Caracas Valley on the Venezuelan coastal mountain range...
(VenezuelaVenezuelaVenezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
, 1974) - Guatemala CityGuatemala CityGuatemala City , is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Guatemala and Central America...
(GuatemalaGuatemalaGuatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...
and Central AmericaCentral AmericaCentral America is the central geographic region of the Americas. It is the southernmost, isthmian portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast. When considered part of the unified continental model, it is considered a subcontinent...
, 1995) - Santiago (ChileChileChile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
, 1954) - San Diego (USA, 1990) FCE USAFCE USAFCE USA is the foreign branch of Mexican publishing house Fondo de Cultura Económica in the United States.Established on September 7, 1990, the branch of Fondo de Cultura Económica in San Diego, California, is ever expanding with the mission of promoting and broadcasting the works of Mexican and...
- MadridMadridMadrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
(SpainSpainSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, 1963)
FCE also has representative offices in: Bolivia
Bolivia
Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, Ecuador
Ecuador
Ecuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border...
, Honduras
Honduras
Honduras is a republic in Central America. It was previously known as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras, which became the modern-day state of Belize...
, Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...
and the Dominican Republic
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of La Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries...
, besides having distribution partners in Costa Rica
Costa Rica
Costa Rica , officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a multilingual, multiethnic and multicultural country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Caribbean Sea to the east....
, Nicaragua
Nicaragua
Nicaragua is the largest country in the Central American American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The country is situated between 11 and 14 degrees north of the Equator in the Northern Hemisphere, which places it entirely within the tropics. The Pacific Ocean...
, Panama
Panama
Panama , officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of Central America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the northwest, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The...
and Uruguay
Uruguay
Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...
.
FCE's Bookstores
FCE has its very own chain of bookstores. There are 21 FCE Bookstores in MexicoMexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
and 11 in the rest of the Spanish-speaking
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
world, in which FCE sells and distributes books of its own production and those of many other publishing houses
Publishing
Publishing is the process of production and dissemination of literature or information—the activity of making information available to the general public...
.
Awards granted by FCE
- The A la Orilla del Viento Picture Book Contest, annually;
- The Mexican and Latin AmericaLatin AmericaLatin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
n contest Leamos La Ciencia para Todos (Spanish for "Let's read 'Science for Everyone [a series of books about science]'"), biannually.
Trivia
- The "Económica" ("economic" in Spanish) part of FCE's name does not refer to the intended prices of its books. Rather, its founders initially thought that it would only publish books on the subject of economicsEconomicsEconomics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
.
- Even though it has been proved wrong by academic investigators time and time again, the following story is still told: When Juan RulfoJuan RulfoJuan Rulfo was a Mexican author and photographer. One of Latin America's most esteemed authors, Rulfo's reputation rests on two slim books, the novel Pedro Páramo , and El Llano en llamas...
handed the original manuscript of his novel Pedro PáramoPedro PáramoPedro Páramo is a short novel written by Juan Rulfo, originally published in 1955. In just the 23 FCE editions and reprintings, it had sold 1,143,000 copies by November 1997. Other editions in Mexico, Spain, and other nations have sold countless more copies...
to Juan José ArreolaJuan José ArreolaJuan José Arreola Zúñiga was a Mexican writer and academic. He is considered Mexico's premier experimental short story writer of the twentieth century. Arreola is recognized as one of the first Latin American writers to abandon realism; he uses elements of fantasy to underscore existentialist and...
, so that he would take it to Alí ChumaceroAli ChumaceroAlí Chumacero Lora was a Mexican poet.-Career:Chumacero was born in Acaponeta, Nayarit. He was the joint editor of Tierra Nueva magazine from 1940-42. He edited Letras de México and El Hijo Pródigo....
(then the Editor-In-Chief of FCE), Arreola tripped with the steps on the entrance to the central office and dropped the manuscript, thus confusing the page order of the manuscript which was then printed that way.