Fondo de Cultura Económica

Fondo de Cultura Económica (FCE or simply “Fondo”) is a Spanish language, non-profit publishing group, partly founded 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 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. Due to its wide reach it has had a deep influence on several generations of Latin American readers. 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 [“economical”] in its name does not allude to the low sales price of its books, actually a permanent goal of this publishing house, but to the aforementioned initial objective of publishing works on economics. Moreover, 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 will open bookstores in Villahermosa and Toluca.

Fondo de Cultura Económica has 8 foreign branches in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Spain, the United States, Guatemala and Peru, which cover the Spanish-speaking population from North, Central and South America and the Caribbean.

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Wikipedia