Sheinbaum keeps Paco Ignacio Taibo II at the head of the Fondo de Cultura Económica amid criticism from the publishing industry

Mexican President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum announced on Tuesday night that she will keep Mexican writer Paco Ignacio Taibo II as director of the Fondo de Cultura Económica. He has been heavily criticized by editors and popularizers for a management that they consider has disrupted the function of the large public publishing house to disseminate scientific works and has turned it into a welfare institution. Sheinbaum made the announcement through her X profile (formerly Twitter), after receiving a visit from the intellectual and Paloma Saiz, coordinator of the Brigada Para Leer en Libertad. Sheinbaum has assured that with her decision she is fulfilling one of her campaign promises.

Since he took over as head of the FCE, Taibo II has developed a strategy that has sparked strong criticism from the publishing sector. The director has promoted the editing and publication of works of fiction and children’s literature at a cost of up to 25 Mexican pesos, with the idea, he said, of making literature more accessible to the most economically depressed sectors. His critics have questioned both the quality of these works and the effectiveness of this strategy. “This desire to give away books modifies the function of the Fund, which is not a welfare publisher, that is not its mission,” journalist and writer Gerardo Ochoa Sandy, author of the digital book 8, told this newspaper.0 years: the cultural battles of the Fund (Nieve de Chamoy, 2014). “One of the main arguments of Paco Ignacio Taibo II to defend his unfortunate editorial policy is that giving away books makes readers. That is absolutely false. For a century in Mexico, different governments, from that of Álvaro Obregón to Felipe Calderón, have given away books with the aim of encouraging reading and, nevertheless, there has not been a noticeable increase in readers. This shows us that this strategy of giving away books has been totally unsuccessful,” explained Ochoa Sandy.

The director of the FCE has assured this newspaper that during his administration he has managed to distribute up to five million copies and argues that “the price of books was an obstacle to reading and then we lowered them and we did very well.” Despite this strategy, a survey by Inegi, the statistics institute, revealed last year that on average a Mexican reads 3.4 books a year and that the reading rate has fallen sharply since 2016, when almost 82% of people over 18 years of age read regularly, while that figure has plummeted to 68.5% this year.

The FCE was created in 1934 by the Mexican economist and diplomat Daniel Cosío Villegas, who was concerned about the limited supply of technical books on economics for university students at a time when Mexico was beginning to emerge as an industrial power in Latin America. The FCE then specialized in publishing works on humanities, science, philosophy and other areas. The project was a resounding success and the institution grew to become one of the most important publishing houses in Latin America, with a presence throughout the region and in Spain. The Fund has an enormous catalogue, which includes more than 10,000 works, including those of 65 Nobel Prize winners. Taibo has also stated that it has maintained its vocation to disseminate scientific topics. “We have made a push in terms of lowering the price of books on popular science,” he said.

Paco Ignacio Taibo II is one of the intellectuals who has maintained loyalty and closeness to the political project of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. He has been part of a group of 21 figures, all of them related to the president, gathered by Morena to prepare the so-called Nation Project 2024-2030a document that presents the country’s vision of the Obradorist movement and that López Obrador’s successor must implement. The writer is a controversial figure, loved and hated in the publishing world. His detractors see him as a totalitarian boss who does not accept criticism. In statements to this newspaper, an editor and translator hoped that the new Administration would remove him from the direction of the FCE to lift the “seizure” of the institution and that he would return to publishing scientific works. Taibo himself echoes the criticisms of his detractors and has defined himself as visceral, in opinions loaded with excesses in his interviews with the press. “I am an Apache: I attack, I insult,” he has affirmed to this newspaper.

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