VIVA LA FONDO DE CULTURA ECONOMICA

   VIVA LA FONDO DE CULTURA ECONOMICA

 It started with my then agent telling me that a Mexican publisher wanted to publish BUG JACK BARRON in a cheap Mexican edition for a small advance.  BUG JACK BARRON had been published in Spanish, but not in Mexico, since, like English language rights split between the US and Britain, Spanish language rights are generally split between Spain and Latin America.  I shrugged, and said okay, not knowing much more about it, except that it was Paco Taibo, who I knew years ago,  was making the deal, and I didn't think much more about it then.

But then Paco asked me to come to Mexico City for the book launch, which was also going to be the launch of a new collection of the overall publisher, La Fondo de Cultura Economica.  What is that ? I asked, and Paco told me the brief version.

La Fondo de Cultura Economica is a non-profit publisher subsidized by the Mexican government which publishes 500 books a year, distributes the books of other publishers in its 140 book stores in Mexico and the rest of Latin America, whose mission is to allow people who otherwise might not be able to afford buy them to buy a wide assortment of books at cut-rate prices.

This was enough for me and Dona to fly 12 hours to Mexico City, as Paco had somehow known I would agree to do.  Only when we got there did I fully understand the wonderful enormity and spirit of La Fondo De Cultura Economica.  As far as I know, and I've been around, its main bookstore in Mexico City is the largest bookstore in the world, three or four levels of it in a converted movie palace. Not just a bookstore but a cafe, a hangout, an art gallery, a small film theater, video facilities.

I  had thought that its cut-rate books would be cheap paperbacks, but they were all high quality, like their BUG JACK BARRON, but the only thing cheap about them were the unbelievable prices. Their good trade edition of BUG JACK BARRON, for example, which would have cost something like $15 elsewhere, was priced at 191 pesos, about $2, and this was not unusual, more books than not were going for even less.

No way I was going to make big bucks. No way La Fondo de Cultura Economica could make a profit.  It's not supposed to.  It is both a publishing and bookseller company, a non- profit, and what the name says, subsidized by an economic government fund to make literary culture affordable to citizens who otherwise might not be able to afford it. 

And particularly to kids.  La Fondo supports reading groups and all sorts of other such things.  When  Paco interviewed me on his weekly TV program one of the other features was a group of young kids in CFE T-shirts brought to Mexico City from the boonies to be awarded something or other by name on live TV.

When I realized that the government of Mexico, not a very rich country after all, was paying taxpayers' money to actually promote and enhance its literary culture, I was honored to have played any part in it. Would I do it again pro bono?  Of course I would.  What real writer wouldn't?

Viva la Fondo de Cultura Economica!

May it become an example to the world.

VIVA LA FONDO DE CULTURA ECONOMICA

 Todo comenzó cuando mi entonces agente me dijo que un editor mexicano quería publicar BUG JACK BARRON en una edición mexicana barata por un pequeño adelanto. BUG JACK BARRON se había publicado en español, pero no en México, ya que, al igual que los derechos de idioma inglés divididos entre los Estados Unidos y Gran Bretaña, los derechos de idioma español generalmente se dividen entre España y América Latina. Me encogí de hombros y dije que estaba bien, sin saber mucho más al respecto, excepto que era Paco Taibo, a quien conocía años atrás, estaba haciendo el trato, y no pensé mucho más en eso.

Pero luego, Paco me pidió que viniera a la Ciudad de México para el lanzamiento del libro, que también sería el lanzamiento de una nueva colección de la editorial en general, La Fondo de Cultura Económica. Que es eso ? Pregunté, y Paco me contó la breve versión.

La Fondo de Cultura Económica es una editorial sin fines de lucro subsidiada por el gobierno mexicano que publica 500 libros al año, distribuye los libros de otras editoriales en sus 140 librerías en México y el resto de América Latina, cuya misión es permitir a las personas que de lo contrario, no podría permitirse comprarlos para comprar una amplia variedad de libros a precios reducidos.

Esto fue suficiente para que Dona y yo volaramos 12 horas a la Ciudad de México, como Paco sabía de alguna manera que estaría de acuerdo en hacerlo. Solo cuando llegamos allí entendí completamente la maravillosa enormidad y el espíritu de La Fondo De Cultura Económica. Hasta donde sé, y he estado cerca, su librería principal en la Ciudad de México es la librería más grande del mundo, tres o cuatro niveles en un palacio de cine convertido. No solo una librería, sino una cafetería, un lugar de reunión, una galería de arte, un pequeño cine, instalaciones de video.

Pensé que sus libros con tarifas reducidas serían libros de bolsillo baratos, pero todos eran de alta calidad, como su BUG JACK BARRON, pero lo único barato de ellos eran los precios increíbles. Su buena edición comercial de BUG JACK BARRON, por ejemplo, que habría costado algo así como $ 15 en otros lugares, tenía un precio de 191 pesos, alrededor de $ 2, y esto no era inusual, más libros de los que no iban por menos.

De ninguna manera iba a ganar mucho dinero. De ninguna manera La Fondo de Cultura Económica podría obtener ganancias. No se supone que lo haga. Es una compañía editorial y de librerías, una organización sin fines de lucro, y lo que dice su nombre, subsidiada por un fondo del gobierno económico para hacer que la cultura literaria sea asequible para los ciudadanos que de otra manera no podrían pagarla.

Y particularmente a los niños. La Fondo apoya grupos de lectura y todo tipo de otras cosas. Cuando Paco me entrevistó en su programa de televisión semanal, una de las otras características fue un grupo de niños pequeños con camisetas de CFE traídas a la Ciudad de México desde los boonies para recibir un nombre u otro por televisión en vivo.

Cuando me di cuenta de que el gobierno de México, no un país muy rico después de todo, estaba pagando el dinero de los contribuyentes para promover y mejorar su cultura literaria, me sentí honrado de haber jugado un papel importante en él. ¿Lo haría de nuevo pro bono? Claro que si. ¿Qué escritor real no lo haría?

¡Viva la Fondo de Cultura Económica!

Que se convierta en un ejemplo para el mundo.

 

Comments

Post a Comment

10 most recent posts

DONALD TRUMP AGENT OF SATAN

                                           DONALD TRUMP AGENT OF SATAN                                               The Bluegrass Song                                    Just in time for the impeachment!  Whoever turns out to be the Democratic candidate for President is welcome to use it as their theme  song. Free of charge! Pro bono! DONALD TRUMP AGENT OF SATAN    click here
Read more

Story of the week--THE MUSIC OF THE SPHERE ---more or less once a week I'll post a freebie story here on NORMAN SPINRAD AT LARGE---one time non-exclusive reprint rights only

For decades I tried to write a story from the viewpoints of dolphins or whales and failed. For decades people have tried to speak to dolphins in their own language and failed. This story, first published in Asimov's Magazine , is about why. Dolphins and whales don't have languages because they don't need them. They've got something much better.                             THE MUSIC OF THE SPHERE                                            by Norman Spinrad In the 1960s there was a band called Blue Cheer whose claim to be the loudest rock and roll band on the planet went unchallenged.  They would play in intimate club venues standing right in front of the same monster speakers used in stadiums.  They were so loud that many aficionados of their recorded music fled in physically agony fro...
Read more

THE TRANSFORMATION CRISIS--a book proposal for a major publisher

                                                                THE TRANSFORMATION CRISIS                                 by Norman Spinrad                                a book proposal                          This orginated as a proposal for a book which was way                          ahead of it’s time and never got written.  It became a free-standing                          essay in several languages, and several speeches, and then the       ...
Read more

PRIME TIME

              Here's the latest freebie story, I think this is going to be an ongoing series, every time I look into my short story backlist I find more things like this. PRIME TIME was published in Omni a long time ago, long before there was any such thing as virtual reality, but it's still predictive. There's never yet been a virtual reality as total as this.                                                        PRIME TIME  by Norman Spinrad Edna chose to awake this morning to good old breakfast loop A. John was reading a newspaper over pancakes and sausages in the kitchen of their old home. The kids were gulping the last of their food and were anxious to be on their way to school. After yesterday's real-time-shared breakfast with John, she really felt she needed the soothing old familiar tape fro...
Read more
                                   QUARANTINE                               by Norman Spinrad  If it wasn’t the best of times, at least it wasn’t the worst of times, or something like that, which is the opening line of a novel called A TALE OF TWO CITIES, and it seemed like this would be only a tale of one. Back in the day before the Quarantine, Manhattan island was the heart and soul and pocketbook of New York City, to the extent that New York could have been said to have all three, Wall Street, Greenwich Village, Broadway and 42nd Street, and all that jazz. When you saw a movie or a TV show or an ad featuring New York, the Big Apple was Manhattan, not anything in what some visiting Californian must have dubbed the “Outer Boroughs,” the moral equivalent of Anaheim or Eagle Rock as far as a Hollywood wise guy was ...
Read more
           ELECT YOUR PEOPLE'S POLICE                            by Norman Spinrad If something isn't done, and done fast, a civil war in the United States is just a shot or a Molotov Cocktail away. But how and by who?   If there is one American who could stand up before the protesters and be listened to it is surely the one and only former President of the United States, Barack Obama. Live before the largest crowd possible and of course well televised.  What should he say? He should speak the hard truth to the leaderless protesters that what they are doing is counterproductive to their own confusion of diverse and general causes which if even possible would take decades of legislation to accomplish. What is needed  immediately is a strong significant and reachable demand. Demand that the head of all police departments in the United States--cities, towns, st...
Read more

GAY OR STRAIGHT, MARRIED OR NOT, ALL COUPLES ARE MATES!

 GAY OR STRAIGHT, MARRIED OR NOT, ALL COUPLES ARE MATES!                                                        by Norman Spinrad  A while back,  Dona Sadock--my clumsily so-called “significant other”--and I  attended a traditional wedding where the “bride and groom,” a man and a woman costumed more or less like the traditional little statues on the traditional wedding cake, became “husband” and “wife.” Dona and I had been “significant others” decades ago, parted for decades and married other people, which is to say officially became “wives and husbands,” were both divorced from our respective spouses, and have now once more been eachother’s “significant others,” for over a decade. Awkwardly written paragraph, now isn’t it? What do you call a man and a woman who are and have long been living together as “husband” ...
Read more

DIRECT ACTION CAN DO IT!

                     DIRECT ACTION Virginia with 13 electoral votes has now joined the Compact.  The magic number is 270.  Now the count to it is 209 and rising.  Only 61 more electoral votes to go.  Which state will be next?  Which state will be the one to finally make it so?  Save American Constitutional Democracy from the coming singularity via The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact   In 2016  Clinton got 3 million more popular votes than Trump but Trump was elected President against the will of the majority of the American voters and the odds are that something like it is going to happen again in 2020. And if it does, the Constitution of the United States will be revealed as incompatible with American Democracy and something cannot help but give. There cannot fail to be a paradigm shift AKA a revolution against the Constitution as it stands. Indeed there has already been a...
Read more
DONALD TRUMP AGENT OF SATAN THE SONG AND VIDEO UPDATED BY JOE CADY Music   by Joe Cady and Norman Spinrad Lyrics and vocal by Norman Spinrad SEE AND HEAR IT ON YOUTUBE
Read more

THE ABNORMAL NEW NORMAL

                    THE ABNORMAL NEW NORMAL                              by Norman Spinrad                 (a presidential platform for a  non-existent campaign)          “Things are more like they are now than they ever have been before.”                                                        --Dwight Eisenhower  “They wrote the biggest rubber check in history and passed it off on themselv...
Read more