Fondo de Cultura Económica (FCE or simply "Fondo") is a Spanish language, non-profit publishing group, partly funded by the Mexican government. It is based in Mexico but it has subsidiaries throughout the Spanish-speaking world.
It was founded in 1934 by Daniel Cosío Villegas with the original purpose of providing students of economics from the Escuela Nacional de Economía with specialized books in Spanish. Soon, it expanded its interests to other subjects: humanities, literature (mostly works written in Spanish), popular science, children's books and literature for young adults.
FCE's backlist encompasses more than ten thousand volumes, approximately 5,000 of which are still in print, and it has an electronic catalog of more than 1,300 titles. FCE has published the books of 65 authors who were awarded with the Nobel Prize; 33 authors awarded with the Miguel de Cervantes Prize, 29 authors honored by the Princess of Asturias Awards, and over 140 authors who were awarded the Mexican National Prize for Arts and Sciences.
The word Económica [“economic”] in its name does not allude to the low sales price of its books, a permanent goal of this publishing house, but to the aforementioned initial objective of publishing works on economics. Furthermore, the Mexican government provides resources to partially cover the costs of production, allowing books to be comparatively more affordable.
In Mexico, FCE has a chain of 27 bookstores in cities like Aguascalientes, Apatzingán, Mexico City, Nezahualcóyotl, Colima, Durango, Guadalajara, León, Monterrey, Morelia, Saltillo and Tuxtla Gutiérrez. In 2016, FCE opened bookstores in Villahermosa and Toluca.
Fondo de Cultura Económica has 8 foreign branches in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Peru, Spain and the United States, which cover the Spanish-speaking population from North, Central and South America and the Caribbean.
Moreover, FCE has representative offices in Bolivia, Canada, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Honduras and Puerto Rico, besides having distribution partners in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Panama and Uruguay.
It publishes three periodicals: El Trimestre Económico, founded a few months before FCE itself; La Gaceta, founded in 1954; and Diánoia (jointly published by FCE and the Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas, UNAM), in circulation since 1955.
Fondo annually or biennially organizes five prizes and competitions for authors, illustrators and readers: Concurso Leamos la Ciencia para Todos (the Let's Read Science for All competition), Concurso de Álbum Ilustrado A la Orilla del Viento (the Picture Book at the Edge of the Wind competition), the Premio Hispanoamericano de Poesía para Niños (the Hispano-American Prize for Poetry for Children, together with the Fundación para las Letras Mexicanas), the Premio Internacional de Divulgación de la Ciencia Ruy Pérez Tamayo (the Ruy Pérez Tamayo International Prize for Science Exposition), and the Concurso Iberoamericano de Ensayo para Jóvenes (the Iberoamerican Essay Competition for Youth).
In 1989, FCE was awarded the Princess of Asturias Awards in the category of Communications and Humanities as recognition for its work in Spanish-speaking countries. In 1987, La Gaceta earned the Mexican Premio Nacional de Periodismo (National Journalism Prize).
Contents
History
Thanks to its authors, editors, and translators, Fondo de Cultura Económica has an 80-year history of being a leading participant in the higher education system and cultural and literary movements of Mexico and Latin America. Among those who have shaped FCE's history are distinguished authors like Alfonso Reyes, Juan Rulfo, Juan José Arreola, Octavio Paz, Carlos Fuentes, Jorge Luis Borges, Carlos Pellicer, Raimundo Lida, José Gorostiza, Alí Chumacero, Salvador Elizondo, Ramón Xirau, Juan Goytisolo, Camilo José Cela, Luis Rosales, María Zambrano, Miguel Delibes, Ricardo Piglia, Gonzalo Rojas, Mario Vargas Llosa, Juan Gelman, Nicanor Parra, Álvaro Mutis, Alejo Carpentier, Sergio Pitol, Elena Garro, Rosario Castellanos, Elena Poniatowska, and Fernando del Paso.
1929 First publication of the journal Economía, sponsored by the Asociación de Banqueros and directed by Miguel Palacios Macedo during its first year, and by Daniel Cosío Villegas during its second year. The School of Economic Studies (forerunner of the Escuela Nacional de Economía) is established at the Department of Law of the Universidad Nacional de México.
1931 Cosío Villegas proposes the Aguilar and Espasa-Calpe publishing houses to issue works in economics. He presents them a list of 50 well-classified titles, which they both refuse, the latter largely due to the disapproval of José Ortega y Gasset.
1934 In April, publication of the first issue of El Trimestre Económico, an academic journal jointly directed by Cosío Villegas and Eduardo Villaseñor with the aim of providing translations and original articles on the subject. It is sponsored by Alberto Mizrachi. On September 3, a trust is registered in the name of Fondo de Cultura Económica at the Banco Nacional Hipotecario Urbano y de Obras Públicas with 22,000 pesos (5,000 from the Secretaría de Hacienda; 10,000 from the Banco de México; 4,000 from the Banco Nacional Hipotecario Urbano y de Obras Públicas; 2,000 from the Banco Nacional de Crédito Agrícola y Ganadero; and 1,000 from the Banco Nacional de México), with the sole purpose of publishing “the works of Mexican and foreign economists and to enter into agreements with publishers and booksellers to purchase and sell works on relevant economic issues.” A governing board is established, and Manuel Gómez Morin, Gonzalo Robles, Adolfo Prieto, Daniel Cosío Villegas, Eduardo Villasenor, and Emigdio Martinez Adame are its first members. A small office in 32 Madero Street, downtown Mexico City, precisely at the Banco Nacional Hipotecario Urbano y de Obras Públicas, serves as its headquarters. José C. Vazquez, editor and typographer, starts working at the publishing house.
Releases
Collections
FCE's backlist encompasses more than ten thousand titles, among which five thousand remain available (i.e., reprinted or in stock). Its catalogue is organized in over 100 collections.
Periodicals
Fondo de Cultura Económica publishes three periodicals:
El Trimestre Económico. Forerunner of FCE itself, this journal began by issuing translations of articles published in major journals in English and gradually began including original research by scholars and government officials from Mexico and Latin America.
La Gaceta. Founded by Arnaldo Orfila Reynal on FCE's 20th anniversary, it is a monthly magazine with excerpts, reviews, articles, and poems. With Jaime García Terrés as its chief editor it took an outstanding literary direction and achieved international presence. In 1987, it received the Mexican Premio Nacional de Periodismo. Today it can be read online (as PDF) and through the iOS and Android apps.
Diánoia. It is a peer-reviewed philosophy journal jointly published by FCE and the Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas, UNAM, since 1955. Its main goal is to promote, coordinate and disseminate original and high-level philosophical production in Spanish. Until 2001, it was a yearly periodical and has been biannual since.
Electronic publishing
FCE has four types of electronic publications:
E-books in ePub and other formats, with up to 1,300 available titles in major e-stores such as Amazon, iBooks, GooglePlay, Barnes & Noble, Snowfall, Todoebook, and its own web site.
Interactive Books, both apps and ePub files; for example, Paloma Valdivia's Es así.
iOS and Android apps for tablets; some of them are: Animalario universal del professor Revillod, Archivo abierto: 80 años del FCE, La Gaceta, and a version of José Moreno de Alba’s Minucias del lenguaje.
Web sites; this includes a version of Moreno de Alba's Minucias del lenguaje, La Gaceta, and El Trimestre Económico under the Open Journals Systems standard (forthcoming).
FCE’s Headquarters
Head Office
On September 4, 1992, Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado, then CEO, inaugurated the new FCE's facilities, located in 227 Picacho-Ajusco Highway, in Mexico City. Surrounded by gardens, the facility also houses the Unidad Cultural Jesús Silva Herzog, the Gonzalo Robles Library, which preserves FCE's growing collection, and the Alfonso Reyes bookstore.
Foreign branches
In addition to its central office in Mexico, FCE has subsidiaries in (year of foundation in brackets):
Buenos Aires (Argentina, 1945)
Santiago (Chile, 1954)
Lima (Peru, 1961)
Madrid (Spain, 1963)
Bogotá (Colombia, 1975)
San Diego (United States, 1990) FCE USA
Guatemala City (Guatemala and Central America, 1995)
Quito (Ecuador, 2015)
Bookstores
FCE runs 37 bookstores, 27 in Mexico and 10 all over the Spanish-speaking world. It sells and distributes its own catalog and also books from other publishers.