Catalogue 2007 - Fondo de Cultura Económica [PDF]

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Catalogue 2007

CONTACT INFORMATION

Fondo de Cultura Económica is the most important publishing house in Mexico and one of the most important ones in Latin America. It was originally established in 1934 as a way to provide students of economics with books in Spanish 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 publishing institution funded by the Mexican government. As part of our recent improvement, we now have our editorial and commercial processes certified with the iso 9001:2000 quality management standards. fce’s backlist encompasses more than 8 000 volumes, from which 4 000 (aprox.) are still being published or reprinted, with more than 250 new titles being added each year. This great cultural wealth is grouped in many subjects, such as Literature, Philosophy, Social Sciences, History, Children’s Books, Art, Economics, etc. Besides its central office in Mexico, fce has foreign branches in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Guatemala, Peru, Spain, usa and Venezuela.

Contact information FONDO DE CULTURA ECONÓMICA Carretera Picacho-Ajusco 227 Bosques del Pedregal, Tlalpan 14738 Mexico City, Mexico Tel: (52-55) 5227-4672 Fax: (52-55) 5227-4656 CONSUELO SÁIZAR C.E.O. [email protected] Tel: (52-55) 5227-4601/4605 Fax: (52-55) 5227-4694

JOAQUÍN DÍEZ-CANEDO Managing Editor (Social Sciences, Humanities and General Interest) [email protected] Tel: (52-55) 5227-4633/4634 Fax: (52-55) 5227-4640 MIRIAM MARTÍNEZ Senior Editor (Children’s Books) [email protected] Tel: (52-55) 5449-1871 Fax: (52-55) 5449-1873 NINA ÁLVAREZ-ICAZA General Coordinator of International Affairs [email protected] Tel: (52-55) 5449-1874 Fax: (52-55) 5227-4698

LEANDRO DE SAGASTIZÁBAL General Manager (fce-Argentina) [email protected] Tel: (5411) 4771-8977 Fax: (5411)4711-8977 CÉSAR AGUILAR General Manager (FCE-Colombia) [email protected] Tel: (571) 531-2288 Fax: (571) 531-1322 MARCELO DÍAZ General Manager (FCE-Spain) [email protected] Tel: (3491) 543-2904, 543-2960 Fax: (3491) 549-8652

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INDEX

Index

Art

Literature

Arcos, María de. Experimentalismo en la música cinematográfica, 4 Malosetti Costa, Laura. Los primeros modernos. Arte y sociedad en Buenos Aires a fines del siglo xix, 4 Musacchio, Humberto. El Taller de Gráfica Popular, 5 Palenzuela, Nilo. Moradas del intérprete, 6

Education Anijovich, Rebeca, et al. Una introducción a la enseñanza para la diversidad, 6 Carlino, Paula. Escribir, leer y aprender en la universidad. Una introducción a la alfabetización académica, 7 Ortega Ruiz, Rosario. Psicología de la enseñanza y desarrollo de personas y comunidades, 7 Padula Perkins, Jorge Eduardo. Una introducción a la educación a distancia, 8 Tedesco, Juan Carlos. Educar en la sociedad del conocimiento, 8

History Bauzá, Hugo Francisco. El mito del héroe. Morfología y semántica de la figura heroica, 9 Bauzá, Hugo Francisco. Qué es un mito. Una aproximación a la mitología clásica, 9 Botero, Clara Isabel, et al. Museo del Oro. Patrimonio milenario de Colombia, 10 Burucúa, José Emilio. Historia, arte, cultura. De Aby Warburg a Carlo Ginzburg, 10 Cosse, Isabella. Estigmas de nacimiento. Peronismo y orden familiar, 1946-1955, 11 Garramuño, Florencia. Modernidades primitivas. Tango, samba y nación, 11 Gené, Marcela. Un mundo feliz. Imágenes de los trabajadores en el primer peronismo, 1946-1955, 12 Lafaye, Jacques. Por amor al griego. La nación europea, señorío humanista (siglos xiv-xvii), 12 Martínez, José Luis. El mundo privado de los emigrantes en Indias, 13 O’Gorman, Edmundo. La invención de América, 13 Palti, Elías José. La nación como problema. Los historiadores y la ‘cuestión nacional’, 14 Serulnikov, Sergio. Conflictos sociales e insurrección en el mundo colonial andino. El norte de Potosí en el siglo xvii, 14 Siracusano, Gabriela. El poder de los colores. De lo material a los simbólico en las prácticas culturales andinas. Siglos xvi-xviii, 15

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Benito-Vessels, Carmen. La palabra en el tiempo de las letras. Una historia heterodoxa, 15 Calvillo, Tomás. El fondo de las cosas, 16 Esquinca, Bernardo. Belleza roja, 16 Fabre, Luis Felipe. Cabaret Provenza, 17 García González, Julieta. Las malas costumbres, 17 Gómez-Peña, Guillermo. Bitácora del cruce, 18 Gutiérrez Girardot, Rafael. Entre la Ilustración y el expresionismo. Figuras de la literatura alemana, 18 Gutiérrez Girardot, Rafael. Modernismo. Supuestos históricos y culturales, 19 Hernández, Efrén. Obras completas, I, 19 Hernández, Luisa Josefina. Los grandes muertos, 20 Laera, Alejandra. El tiempo vacío de la ficción. Las novelas argentinas de Eduardo Gutiérrez y Eugenio Cambaceres, 20 Macías, Elva. Imperio móvil, 21 Montemayor, Carlos. Obras reunidas, I, 21 Pastormelo, Sergio. Borges crítico, 22 Prieto, Carlos. Cinco mil años de palabras. Comentarios sobre el origen, evolución, muerte y resurrección de algunas lenguas, 22 Reyes, Alfonso. Letras de la Nueva España, 23 Roca, Juan Manuel. Cantar de lejanía. Antología personal, 23 Rojas Rebolledo, Eduardo. La ruta del aqueronte, 24 Sarlo, Beatriz. Siete ensayos sobre Walter Benjamin, 24 Uribe, Álvaro. La linterna de los muertos (y otros cuentos fantásticos), 25 Velasco Luján, Jaime. Luna bajo el árbol, 25 Vicens, Josefina. El libro vacío. Los años falsos, 26 Villarreal, José Javier. La santa, 26 Zepeda, Eraclio. Las grandes lluvias, 27

Philosophy Beuchot, Mauricio. La semiótica. Teorías del signo y el lenguaje en la historia, 27 Beuchot, Mauricio. Historia de la filosofía del lenguaje, 28 Cerutti, Horacio. Filosofía de la liberación latinoamericana, 28 Guariglia, Osvaldo. Una ética para el siglo xxi. Ética y derechos humanos en un tiempo posmetafísico, 29 Hilb, Claudia. Leo Strauss: el arte de leer. Un lectura de la interpretación straussiana de Maquiavelo, Hobbes, Locke y Spinoza, 29 Muguerza, Javier. Desde la perplejidad. Ensayos sobre la ética, la razón y el diálogo, 30 Navarro Reyes, Jesús. Pensar sin certezas. Montaigne y el arte de conversar, 30

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INDEX

Palti, Elías José. Verdades y saberes del marxismo. Reacciones de una tradición política ante su ‘crisis’, 31 Villoro, Luis. Los retos de la sociedad por venir, 31

Jelin, Elizabeth. Pan y afectos. La transformación de la familia, 43 Sibilia, Paula. El hombre postorgánico. Cuerpo, subjetividad y tecnologías digitales, 43

Politics Children’s Books

Abal Medina, Juan. La muerte y la resurrección de la representación política, 32 Aguilar, Luis F. Gobernanza y gestión pública, 32 Durán Barba, Jaime, y Santiago Nieto. Mujer, sexualidad, internet y política. Los nuevos electores latinoamericanos, 33 Feijoó, María del Carmen. Nuevo país, nueva pobreza, 33 Fuentes-Berain, Rossana y Gerardo Laveaga. La democracia y sus quimeras. Diálogo entre un escéptico y una idealista, 34 Herrera-Lasso M., Luis (coord.) México ante el mundo: tiempo de definiciones, 34 Laclau, Ernesto. Misticismo, retórica y política, 35 Muleiro, Hugo. Al margen de la agenda. Noticias, discriminación y exclusión, 35 Pinto, Mónica. El derecho internacional. Vigencia y desafíos en un escenario globalizado, 36 Salazar Ugarte, Pedro. La democracia constitucional. Una radiografía teórica, 36 Silva-Herzog Márquez, Jesús. La idiotez de lo perfecto. Miradas a la política, 37

Amara, Luigi. Las aventuras de Max y su ojo submarino, 44 Baranda, María. Hago de voz un cuerpo, 45 Carrasco Inglés, Aitana. Ramona la mona, 46 Chávez Castañeda, Ricardo. Fernanda y los mundos secretos, 46 Colomer, Teresa. Andar entre libros. La lectura literaria en la escuela, 47 Dubovoy, Silvia. Ecos del desierto, 47 Duhne, Martha. ¿Quién pasó por aquí?, 48 Farias, Juan. Gallego. A la orilla del mar, 49 Ferreiro, Emilia. Cultura escrita y educación, 50 García Esperón, María. Tigres de la otra noche, 50 Hinojosa, Francisco. La peor señora del mundo, 51 Hiriart, Hugo. El nombre del juego es Posada, 52 Isol. El globo, 53 Isol. Secreto de familia, 53 Isol. Tener un patito es útil, 54 Isol. Vida de perros, 55 Krauze, León. El vuelo de Eluán, 55 Lago, Angela. Juan Felizario Contento. El rey de los negocios, 56 Legnazzi, Claudia. Yo tengo una casa, 56 Luján, Jorge. El arca, 57 Martínez, Rocío. De cómo nació la memoria de El Bosque, 58 Monroy, Manuel. Rabieta Trebejos, 59 Murugarren, Miguel. Animalario universal del profesor Revillod, 59 Pavisic, Jenny. ¿Sansón?, 60 Pellicer López, Carlos. Julieta y su caja de colores, 60 Pellicer, Carlos. Colores con brisa, 61 Rueda, Claudia. La suerte de Ozu, 62 Sáez, Javier. Libro Caracol, 62 Sánchez, María del Carmen. ¿Para qué usas la lengua?, 63 Toledo, Natalia. La Muerte pies ligeros, 64 Yáñez, Ricardo. Un pajarillo canta, 64

Science Gurevich, Yuri y Felipe Pérez. Fenómenos de transporte en semiconductores, 37 Hernández Macías, Héctor. La vida en los desiertos mexicanos, 38 Jaramillo, Juan Francisco. 101 hierbas medicinales, 38 Larralde, Carlos y Aline Aluja. Cisticercosis. Guía para profesionales de la salud, 39 Lisker, Rubén y Ruy Pérez Tamayo. La construcción de la bioética. Textos de bioética, vol. i, 39 Paredes, Octavio, et al. Los alimentos mágicos de las culturas indígenas mesoamericanas, 40 Peña, Luis de la. Introducción a la mecánica cuántica, 40 Prieto, Carlos. Aventuras de un duende en el mundo de las matemáticas, 41 Schifter, Isaac y Carmen González-Macías. La Tierra tiene fiebre, 41 Trabulse, Elías. La ciencia en el siglo xix, 42

Sociology Arfuch, Leonor. El espacio biográfico. Dilemas de la subjetividad contemporánea, 42

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ART

Experimentalismo en la música cinematográfica

Los primeros modernos. Arte y sociedad en Buenos Aires a fines del siglo XIX

[Experimentalism in Film Music]

[The First Modernists: Art and Society in Late NineteenthCentury Buenos Aires]

María de Arcos 1st ed., Fce Spain, 2006 238 pp. 16.5 × 23 cm (6.5 × 9 in) Collection: Tezontle. Subject: Music ISBN 8437505992

Laura Malosetti Costa 1st ed., fce Argentina, 2001 455 pp. 15.5 × 23 cm (6 × 9 in) Collection: Historia. Subjects: Art / Architecture; Theory, criticism and history; Painting; National history; History of the New World; Contemporary era; Culture and society ISBN 9505574258

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hy has film music, ever since its beginnings, clung to a romantic, extremely traditional musical language? Why did the experimental currents that flourished in twentieth-century concert music leave no mark on film music? What happens when a film uses new music and avoids the usual stereotyped patterns? These questions are thoroughly analyzed in this book. María de Arcos traces the evolution of music and film music through the course of the twentieth century, leading to an examination of the effectiveness of an experimental musical language transferred to the screen. She concludes with a theoretical and practical analysis of the sound track of Planet of the Apes (Franklin J. Schaffner, 1968) by the renowned American composer Jerry Goldsmith. The novel musicological focus of this book will be a revelation to music and film researchers, critics and professionals, film school and conservatory students, and any readers interested in increasing their knowledge of film sound tracks and their evolution. The text is accompanied by scores and an illustrated glossary of musical terms.

María de Arcos is a senior professor of composition at the Seville Conservatory. She has composed music for short films, film reports and a variety of types of film. María de Arcos earned her doctorate in 2003 from the Universidad de Sevilla and is currently a professor of piano and film music at the Francisco Guerrero Professional Conservatory in Seville.

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his book is a new study of art in Buenos Aires in the final decades of the nineteenth century. In particular, it examines the ways in which art was interrelated with the political, economic, social and cultural history of the period. The Sociedad Estímulo de Bellas Artes (Society for the Promotion of Fine Arts) was founded in a climate of confrontation and controversy about the place of national and modern art. At the same time, there was growing interest in cultural consumption on the part of the bourgeoisie. In the field of art, the tension between a certain urgency to access the prestige associated with cultural consumption and the desire to confer an esthetic-ideological justification both on the works of art and on the audience envisioned for them can be perceived with particular clarity. Laura Malosetti Costa (Montevideo, Uruguay, 1956) has a degree in arts and a Ph.D. in history of art from the University of Buenos Aires. She is a research professor at the Julio E. Paryó Institute of Art History and Theory and a member of the executive committee of the caia (Argentinean Center for Research in Art).

This book gives the reader an experience that even a museum can not provide; a fascinating account of the circumstances that made these paintings central to an understanding of late nineteenthcentury Argentinean culture.

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ART

El Taller de Gráfica Popular

[The People’s Graphic Arts Workshop] Humberto Musacchio 1st ed., Fce Mexico, 2007 208 pp. 23 x 32 cm (9 x 12.5 in) Collection: Arte Universal. Subject: Art ISBN 9789681677039

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he Taller de Gráfica Popular (tgp; People’s Graphic Arts Workshop) was founded in Mexico in 1937 by Leopoldo Méndez and a group of other talented graphic artists and muralists. This book tells the story of the workshop, its members, and its importance to Mexico’s cultural and political landscape. The Gráfica Popular, as it was also known, soon adopted the extensive artistic heritage of Mexican engraving, legacy of caricaturists and illustrators of the stature of Joaquín Giménez, Constantino Escalante, Hesiquio Iriarte, Santiago Hernández, José María Villasana, Jesús T. Alamilla, Gabriel Vicente Gahona Picheta, and Manuel Manilla, and above all, José Guadalupe Posada, the master of Mexican engraving whose influence left an indelible mark on the Taller and its work.

Humberto Musacchio (b. 1943) studied economics at the University of Mexico, and coordinated and directed the Revista Mexicana de la Cultura. He was a cofounder and assistant director of the newspaper La Jornada and has worked at a number of Mexico’s major newspapers, Unomásuno, El Día, El Nacional, Excélsior, Novedades and La Jornada. He is the author of several books, including Diccionario enciclopédico de México.

Includes more than 120 engravings by key artists in Mexico’s modern history, such as Leopoldo Méndez, Miguel Covarrubias, David Alfaro Sequeiros, Pablo O’Higgins, Luis Arenal, Raúl Anguiano, José Chávez Morado, Alfredo Zalce, Ángel Bracho and Mariana Yampolsky.

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ART

Moradas del intérprete

Una introducción a la enseñanza para la diversidad

[An Introduction to Teaching for Diversity] Rebeca Anijovich et al. 1st ed., fce Argentina, 2004 128 pp. 15.5 × 23 cm (6 × 9 in) Collection: Educación y pedagogía. Subjects: Education, Teaching ISBN 9505576188

[The Interpreter’s Abodes] Nilo Palenzuela 1st ed., Fce Spain, 2007 192 pp. 16.5 × 23 cm (6.5 × 9 in) Collection: Tierra Firme. Subjects: Essay, Art, Art History ISBN 8437506018

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n these essays, Nilo Palenzuela writes about a diverse collection of twentieth-century writers and artists from Europe and the New World. He presents their essential poetic and philosophical positions as ‘interpreters;’ those who are first of all creators, caught on the edge between modernity and tradition (Unamuno, Borges, Klee, Arp, Tamayo, Paz); those who are interpreters who crack open the doors of language onto thought (María Zambrano, García Bacca, Eugenio Trías); and those who uphold the expression of contemporary freedom (Vicente Rojo, Francisco Toledo, Mario Merz). Archetypes, forms of representation, actions, and textual references are combined to reveal the fractured face of the modern subject. Since the beginnings of modernity, the urge to rebel against the old order has always existed side by side with ongoing criticism of narcissistic excess and the will to power; a rebellion that seeks to put creative work, words, images into play, into life. Moradas del intérprete is a unique example of current essay-writing in Spanish, a creative interpretation that transcends national borders. Nilo Palenzuela (Canary Islands, 1958) is a writer and professor of Spanish literature at Universidad de La Laguna (Tenerife). He is also known for his writing on contemporary art and esthetics. He is a regular contributor to numerous journals, including Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos, Letras Libres, Vuelta, Revista de Occidente, Missives, and Quimera, among others.

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n recent decades, a variety of theories have been applied to the issue of heterogeneity in the classroom but little has been written on concrete, systematic day-to-day experiences in schools. This book reports on a successful educational project carried out in elementary and secondary schools in Argentina and other Latin American countries since 1996. The goal of this project is to meet the varied learning needs of each individual student. The authors present not only the theoretic underpinnings of their methods, but also examples and useful tools: an understanding of heterogeneity as a fundamental ingredient of the educational task; concepts of autonomy, metacognition, and cooperative learning; planning and implementation of teaching for diversity; alternative forms of evaluation; establishment of educational environments in which human, physical, and technological resources are at the service of learning; the development of student autonomy; and the creation of learning centers for flexibility in teaching techniques. This is a constructivist approach that focuses on teaching methods that take into account the differences in potential between students.

Rebeca Anijovich holds a degree in psychology and education science from the Argentinean teacher’s college Instituto Nacional Superior del Profesorado ‘Joaquín V. González’ and a Master’s degree in teacher training from the University of Buenos Aires Faculty of Liberal Arts. She teaches at the University of Buenos Aires, the University of San Andrés, and the flacso (Latin American School of Social Science).

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Psicología de la enseñanza y desarrollo de personas y comunidades

[Psychology of Teaching. Learning and Training for Individuals and Communities]

[Reading, Writing and Learning in University: An Introduction to Academic Literacy]

Rosario Ortega Ruiz Paula Carlino 1st ed., fce Mexico, 2005 343 pp. 13.5 × 21 cm (5.3 × 8.3 in) Collection: Educación y pedagogía Subject: Education, Teaching, Learning ISBN 9681675428

1st ed., fce Argentina, 2005 200 pp. 15.5 × 23 cm (6 × 9 in) Collection: Educación y pedagogía. Subjects: Education, Teaching ISBN 9505576536

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his book received the award for Best Book in EducationTeaching published in 2005. Despite the fact that reading and writing are central activities in high school and university, and students’ success or failure depends to a great extent on these skills, they do not form part of academic programs nor do they receive adequate attention from teachers, thanks to a set of widely-held assumptions which are, however, not supported by research. In this book, Carlino examines these assumptions and proposes a different point of view; that teachers at all levels and in all areas should be concerned about ‘academic literacy’ in their field of specialization. The author suggests that professors integrate the production and analysis of texts between all areas so that university students can have access to the specific culture of each discipline. With this goal in mind, she presents a variety of teaching activities, which all who seek to encourage student learning and participation in class will find valuable. She concludes with a teaching model whose purpose is to promote mastery of the concepts of each subject through encouraging reading and writing in the respective subjects.

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sychology of Teaching is a handbook for professors and professionals of education who might consider psychology as the basis for the educative input. The book discusses learning difficulties and evaluates the current state of the educational sciences; it analyses the psychological foundations of learning from cognitive, constructivist, and sociocultural perspectives. It discusses as well the different phases of education according to age: childhood, adolescence and youth.

Rosario Ortega is a professor of Psychology of Education and Training at the University of Córdoba in Spain and she is the head of the Department of Education at the Faculty of Sciences of Education in the same university. She tutors psychopedagogical research oriented to the use of games in the process of learning, the social construction of knowledge and learning, and the prevention of juvenile violence. This is a book of great interest for students and researchers on the different areas of education. Its clear and straightforward style offers interesting data on the state of education in Spain that can readily be applied to all Latin American countries. Its research will be of great use to teachers, managers of educational programs and institutions, students and scholars.

Paula Carlino (Buenos Aires, 1963) obtained a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Madrid and is a conicet (Argentinean Science and Technology Research Council) researcher and a researcher at the University of Buenos Aires Institute of Linguistics.

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EDUCATION

Escribir, leer y aprender en la universidad. Una introducción a la alfabetización académica

EDUCATION

Una introducción a la educación a distancia

Educar en la sociedad del conocimiento

[An Introduction to Distance Learning] Jorge Eduardo Padula Perkins 1st ed., fce Argentina, 2003 91 pp. 15.5 × 23 cm (6 × 9 in) Collection: Educación y pedagogía. Subjects: Education, Pedagogy, Teaching ISBN 9505575351

[Education in the Knowledge Society] Juan Carlos Tedesco 1st ed., fce Argentina, 2000 122 pp. 10.5 × 17 cm (4 × 6.8 in) Collection: Colección Popular. Subjects: Education, Educational policy, Globalization ISBN 9505573723

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istance learning is a convenient option in contemporary times, as it provides an excellent compromise between training needs and the distance and time limitations imposed by modern life. In Latin America, however, distance learning has traditionally not enjoyed a good reputation, while in other countries, solid distance learning projects supported by major universities have enjoyed success and good reputations. In recent years, not only has the explosion of the internet and other high technology promoted increased demand and supply in computerized distance learning, but the impact of technology has also had a marked effect on the nature of distance learning. In this book, the author analyzes various aspects of distance learning and debunks old myths. Jorge Eduardo Padula Perkins (Buenos Aires, 1952) is a renowned expert in distance learning issues, particularly the communication aspect of the field. He has a degree in journalism from the Universidad del Salvador Faculty of Education Science and Social Communication.

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he phenomena analyzed in this book are characterized by novelty and instability. No one can doubt that we are living a period of profound transformation, but we do not actually know if this pattern of dynamic change will persist or if we are caught in the middle of a transition that at some point will assume a certain degree of stability. At present, the intensive use of knowledge, rather than the intensive use of labor, is the axis about which the economy turns. This book analyzes the phenomena which pervade education and studies their consequences; the role of the school, of the ‘educational industry’ and other agents of socialization, such as business, family, and the media. Two reactions frequently arise in response to the apprehension these changes provoke. The first discards predictions and even explanatory hypotheses, since the possibility of error is so high. The second tries to make sense of the changes by moving away from the social science approach and closer to social philosophy. The arguments in this book are located in the tension between these two positions, challenging the silence and reticence of the debate. Juan Carlos Tedesco (Buenos Aires, 1944) has a bachelor’s degree in education science from the University of Buenos Aires. In 1976 he entered unesco as a specialist in educational policy for the unesco eclac Project. He is currently the regional headquarters director of the International Institute for Education Planning in Buenos Aires.

A compact but informative book that can be helpful for developing distance learning projects. Consciously written at an introductory level for the general reader interested in these issues and readers new to the field.

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Qué es un mito. Una aproximación a la mitología clásica

[The Myth of the Hero: Morphology and Semantics of the Heroic Figure]

[What is a Myth? An Introduction to Classical Mythology]

Hugo Francisco Bauzá

Hugo Francisco Bauzá

1st ed., fce Argentina, 1998 193 pp. 13 × 20 cm (5 × 7.8 in) Collection: Historia. Subjects: History, Topics in history, Socio-cultural topics, Mythology, Religion ISBN 950557245X

1st ed., fce Argentina, 2005 264 pp. 10.5 × 17 cm (approx. 4 × 5.8 in) Collection: Colección Popular. Subjects: Mythology, Religion ISBN 9505576463

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he semantics of the idea of the hero vary from one people and culture to another, yet there are certain consistent elements that allow us to speak of a heroic canon or pattern. What heroes have in common is that they are transgressors, they cross the threshold of the prohibited and go beyond the limits imposed by society. They are also in the promising situation of being under the influence of the hope—generally utopic—of wanting to bring order to a disordered world. And so they launch themselves enthusiastically into an adventure in the unknown, often to succumb to a tragic end. In the analysis in this book, the hero is defined as a singular being whose intervention converts chaos to cosmos. It must be emphasized, however, that the story remains dynamic and therefore active due to the exemplary actions of these singular beings; ‘The survival of the heroic figure over the centuries and in different cultures,’ the author states, ‘demonstrates man’s need, in all ages and latitudes, to create idols; to erect altars at which to worship them.’

D

espite the fact that contemporary culture is marked by rationality, two world wars and uncountable genocides bear witness to an undeniable crisis of reason. Man has been and will continue to be an ‘amphibious’ being whose mind can hold both reason and imagination. Today, post-modernity encourages a turn to myth—a return to thought nourished by dreams, fantasies, and utopias capable of grasping the dark side. The author engages in a synoptic and systematic reflection on myth in the present day and age. He examines the origin and themes of Greek mythology, the source of Western culture, and the link between paganism and Christianity and the resurrection of myth during the Renaissance and Romanticism. He concludes by analyzing the various interpretations of mythic thinking since the nineteenth century that have arisen out of anthropology, sociology, and the history of religion, but in particular out of psychoanalysis.

Hugo Francisco Bauzá (La Plata, Buenos Aires, 1942) holds a doctorate in literature from the National University of La Plata (unlp) and l’Université Paris IV, Sorbonne. He is a professor in the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Buenos Aires and a conicet (Argentinean Science and Technology Research Council) researcher.

Hugo Francisco Bauzá (La Plata, Buenos Aires, 1942) holds a doctorate in literature from the National University of La Plata (unlp) and l’Université Paris IV, Sorbonne. He is a professor in the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Buenos Aires and a conicet (Argentinean Science and Technology Research Council) researcher.

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‘In this book, Hugo Bauza has taken up the challenge of presenting a synoptic and systematic analysis of our knowledge about myth in our time.’ Jean-Jacques Wunenburger Université Jean-Moulin, Lyon 3

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HISTORY

El mito del héroe. Morfología y semántica de la figura heroica

HISTORY

Museo del Oro. Patrimonio milenario de Colombia

Historia, arte, cultura. De Aby Warburg a Carlo Ginzburg

[The Gold Museum: Colombia’s Thousand-Year Heritage]

[History, Art and Culture: From Aby Warburg to Carlo Ginzburg]

Photographs: Juan Mayr Text: Clara Isabel Botero, Roberto Lleras Pérez, Santiago Londoño Vélez and Efraín Sánchez Cabra

José Emilio Burucúa 1st ed., fce Argentina, 2003 199 pp. 13.5 × 20 cm (5.3 × 7.8 in) Collection: Historia. Subjects: History, Historiography, Classics ISBN 9505575580

1st ed., Fce/Banco de la República/Skira, Colombia, 2007 272 pp. 24 × 28 cm (9.5 × 11 in) Collection: Tezontle. Subject: Archeology ISBN 9789583801341 paperback ISBN 9789583801358 hard cover

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he Colombian Banco de la República’s Gold Museum has been classifying, exhibiting and conducting research on its collection of fifty thousand pre-Hispanic objects, which include works of gold, silver and other materials, since 1939. This book includes more than two hundred photographs of the most important pieces. The book also includes brief notes about the pre-Hispanic societies that created the items, their ideology magnificently expressed in these pieces, the techniques they used and the symbolic values they assigned to the objects. In addition, illustrations, maps, and photographs of their territory provide further context for this extraordinary collection. Readers will discover the fascination and comprehend the fever aroused in the first conquistadores by the myth of El Dorado, as they learn how the past came to play a part in the identities of the societies that today occupy the New World. Reading this book is almost like visiting the Gold Museum.

Juan Mayr is a photographer, environmentalist and scholar of pre-Hispanic and indigenous societies. His pictorial vision makes the photographs of the Gold Museum’s collection— taken especially for this book—true works of art.

by Warburg (1866-1929), a German Renaissance historian, has attracted renewed interest in recent years. In the Spanish-speaking world, he and his work became known through the work of the Argentinean historian Jose Emilio Burucúa. In this book, Burucúa treats Warburg’s essays. The Warburgian tradition changed the way that cultural history was written in many countries in the West, especially in Italy, where his influence is evident on studies of Renaissance magic, philosophy, and science and in the works of the notable historian Carlo Ginzburg, who has proposed a broader version of the Warburgian method. Why turn to Warburg’s work now? Perhaps it has aroused renewed interest because our current dilemma resembles that of the men of the Renaissance. In this work we are exposed as faithful children of the past, but also, according to the author, ‘as the living proof of what is radically new and yet to come, of a justice, a goodness, and a beauty that we have been promised from the beginning of history and that remain unfulfilled.’ José Emilio Burucúa (Buenos Aires, 1947) is a teacher training professor in history of the arts and has a degree in that subject from the University of Buenos Aires, where he is also a professor. Burucúa possesses a formidable erudition; a prodigious knowledge of history, the arts, and philosophy; and above all an outstanding capacity for reflection on relationships and connections.

The most complete book of the Gold Museum collection. With the magnificent photographs in this large format, full color de-luxe edition, present-day readers can experience the fascination of El Dorado.

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Modernidades primitivas. Tango, samba y nación

[Stigmas of Birth: Peronism and the Family Order, 1946-1955]

[Primitive Modernity: Tango, Samba and Nations] Florencia Garramuño 1st ed., fce Argentina, 2007 269 pp. 13.5 × 21 cm (5.3 × 8.3 in) Collection: Tierra Firme. Subjects: Cultural studies, Cultural criticism, Art, Architecture, Music ISBN 9789505577019

Isabella Cosse 1st ed., Buenos Aires, 2006 206 pp. 13.5 × 21 cm (5.3 × 8.3 in) Collection: Historia. Subjects: Contemporary history, Social and cultural history, Culture and society, Cultural studies, Family and gender studies ISBN 9505576684

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his book examines the changes introduced into the domestic order by Peronism from an as yet unexplored perspective: the dynamics of families outside the regulatory model, especially in regard to illegitimacy. When the new regime took power, almost one in three newborns was classified as ‘illegitimate.’ The notion of family was central, because it involved an attempt to reformulate the very concept of legitimacy and redefine its limits. Estigmas de nacimiento is a work of thorough, original research which explores the intersection of familial, cultural, and political history, examining the peculiar views of Peronism in relation to the domestic order. This book is an attempt to understand the meaning that illegitimacy had for people whose lives did not conform to social mandates and model images, while it analyzes the changes introduced by Peronism in relation to the rights and perceptions of people whose family structures were outside societal standards.

Isabella Cosse (Montevideo, Uruguay, 1966) has a degree in history from the Universidad de la República in Montevideo, Uruguay and a master’s degree in historical sciences from the University of San Andrés where she is pursuing a doctorate. She specializes in history of the family in Argentina.

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uring the 1920s and 1930s, a period of intense modernization, two musical genres that had been considered primitive—the tango in Argentina and the samba in Brazil—began to be perceived as national musical styles. Modernidades primitivas examines the cultural network in which these two types of music came to be manifestations of national and modern character, and analyzes nationalization of the Argentinean and Brazilian cultures as the intersection of different practices; the allure of the primitive to the nationalist, but cosmopolitan vanguard; the export of tango and samba back to Europe; and the decisive role of tango and Carnaval films. This paradox, which the author terms primitive modernity, involves a tangled skein of problems relating to the nationalization and modernization of a Latin American culture in which the tango and samba function as dual and contradictory figures. Modernity is assumed to be European, original and unique, and deviations from this standard are seen as negative characteristics of an unequal modernity. How does a cultural dogma become ‘national’? What are the operations that enable particular cultural forms to be thought of as symbols of ‘national identity’? With its comparison of the two countries concerned, Modernidades primitivas brings a fresh outlook to a Latin American culture characterized by differences.

Florencia Garramuño (Rosario, Santa Fe, Argentina, 1964) has a degree in literature from the University of Buenos Aires and a Ph.D. in Romance languages from Princeton University. She is an associate professor in the Department of Humanities at the University of San Andrés, where she heads the Brazilian Culture Program.

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HISTORY

Estigmas de nacimiento. Peronismo y orden familiar, 1946-1955

HISTORY

Por amor al griego. La nación europea, señorío humanista (siglos xiv-xvii)

Un mundo feliz. Imágenes de los trabajadores en el primer peronismo, 1946-1955

[For the Sake of Greek. The European Nation, Dominion of Humanism (Fourteenth to Seventeenth Centuries)]

[Brave New World: Images of Workers in the First Peronist Period, 1946-1955]

Jacques Lafaye Marcela Gené

1st ed., fce Mexico, 2005 594 pp. 16.5 × 23 cm (6.5 × 9 in) Collection: Historia. Subject: History, European Humanism ISBN 9681677528

1st ed., fce Argentina, 2005 159 pp. 13.5 × 21 cm (5.3 × 8.3 in) Collection: Historia. Subjects: History, National history, Contemporary history, Social and cultural history, Culture and society ISBN 9505576277

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he iconoclastic furor of the 1955 Revolución Libertadora (Revolution for Liberation) wiped away the symbols and images of Peronism in an attempt to erase from collective memory every vestige that might evoke the deposed regime. A mere ten years earlier, one of the central concerns of the movement that was then beginning to coalesce was to create symbols that would contribute to its identity. In the early years of the Peron government, thousands of posters and pamphlets bore the silhouettes of their supporters, the descamisados and happy families of workers reminding them who the true beneficiaries of government policies were. In this book, Marcela Gené has carried out an esthetic and symbolic analysis of the images that were part of the powerful propaganda apparatus assembled by the government of Juan Domingo Perón, an aspect which has received little attention. Marcela Gené (Buenos Aires, 1958) has a first degree in art history from the University of Buenos Aires and a master’s degree and Ph.D. from the University of San Andrés. She is a researcher at the Julio E. Paryó Institute of Art History and Theory and head of the caia (Argentinean Center for Research in Art). A keen analysis by an expert in art history. The careful reconstruction of the images of Peronism places them in a global context.

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his book is the final outcome of a long research on the development of European humanism. It discusses its various aspects including the particular kind of humanism that flourished in Spain, Portugal, and their colonies, especially New Spain. The author presents humanists as diverse as Plato and Aristotle; Petrarch, Erasmus, and Montaigne; Cicero and Quintilian; Covarrubias and Juan Luis Vives; the Mexican fray Diego Valadés; the Medici family; the French Budé, Lefèvre, Estienne, Amyot, Turnèbe, and Casaubon; the English Linacre, Colet and Thomas More; the German Wittenberg, Reuchlin, Beatus and Melanchton; Lebrija; the Portuguese humanists, those from Salamanca, Bologna, Louvain, Paris and Bordeaux; Bembo, Boccaccio and Paolo Giovio; the humanists in the New World, the ‘Antarctic Academy’ of Lima; Machiavelli and the Parisian Bodino; the utopias of the humanists (from Thomas More to Rabelais), and much more. Jacques Lafaye is a French historian who now lives in Mexico. His previous books dealt with essential aspects of Renaissance history. At fce he has published Albores de la imprenta, Los conquistadores and Quetzacóatl y Guadalupe. This is the first Spanish-language book on the subject, which focuses on humanists rather than on humanism. It is also the first to encompass the entire European sphere together with the Spanish colonies in America. This is a provocative book. In its ‘Considerations without warning’ the author raises the question whether the humanities are a bourgeois privilege or a source of support for all humankind. ‘This is not a weighty book, and by that I mean that even though it was written by a scholar it reads as if it were a journey, a tale that captivates the reader.’

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La invención de América: investigación acerca de la estructura histórica del Nuevo Mundo y del sentido de su devenir

[The Private World of Immigrants in the Indies]

[The Invention of America. An Inquiry into the Historical Nature of the New World and the Meaning of its History]

José Luis Martínez 2nd ed., fce Mexico, 2007 93 pp. 11 × 17 cm (4.3 × 6.7 in) Collection: Biblioteca Universitaria de Bolsillo. Subject: History ISBN 968168334X

Edmundo O’Gorman 4th ed., fce Mexico, 2006 256 pp. 11 × 17 cm (4.3 × 6.7 in) Collection: Biblioteca Universitaria de Bolsillo. Subject: History ISBN 9681680154

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n this unusual book, the intimate lives of Spanish immigrants to the New World are told in 650 personal letters. These letters, known as cartas de llamada (letters of call), went into the official files, as the immigrants were obliged to bring their families to the New World, and their correspondence was included to demonstrate their intention to fulfill the obligation. Those who had already immigrated focused on making a fortune; their letters spoke of how hard work would enable them to earn wealth and build their reputations. The collection includes the emotional letters they wrote to their wives, promising presents and privileges undreamed of in their homeland. José Luis Martínez was a Mexican editor, essayist and historian. He served as Mexico’s ambassador to unesco and to Peru and Greece. He was the Chronicler of Mexico City from 1975 to 1986, and director of the Fine Arts Institute and of the publishing house Fondo de Cultura Económica. He was awarded the French Légion d’honneur and the Mexican National Literature and Linguistics and Alfonso Reyes awards. He headed the Mexican Academy of the Spanish Language and was a member of the Mexican Academy of History.

This book is a fascinating window into Colonial thought and daily life. The letters in this book tell of the motives—love and family fortune—of those who arrived to establish their way of life on the new continent. A fundamental book for the study of cultural relations between Europe and the New World.

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istory is full of amazing voyages, and Colombus’s 1492 trip across the Atlantic is among the most spectacular of them, not the least because of its unexpected end: the discovery of Americas, one of the foremost events in world history. Columbus came upon lands that were not precisely a New World, but rather part of the same and only world we know. The author describes the appearance of the Americas as the result of chance and Columbus’s personal goals, and suggests we replace our notion of the discovery of the continent with another that better reflects historical reality: the invention of the Americas.

Edmundo O’Gorman (Mexico City, 1906-1995) is often called ‘the philosophical historian.’ A longtime professor and researcher at the University of Mexico, he is especially known for his doxographic work, his careful research of primary sources, and his work in document preservation. Also noted for his lucid, penetrating analysis of the history of Mexico and the Americas, O’Gorman oversaw many now-classic editions of the writings of numerous authors, including Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo, Francisco Cervantes de Salazar, José de Acosta, Fray Toribio de Benavente, Fernando de Alva Ixtlixóchitl, Bartolomé de las Casas, Justo Sierra and Fray Servando Teresa de Mier. This book is controversial because it questions the notion of ‘discovery.’ It is a pioneering inquiry into representations of the identity of the New World . It is essential reading for students of colonial and postcolonial history of the New World.

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HISTORY ART

El mundo privado de los emigrantes en Indias

HISTORY

Conflictos sociales e insurrección en el mundo colonial andino. El norte de Potosí en el siglo XVII

La nación como problema. Los historiadores y la “cuestión nacional”

[The Nation as Problem: Historians and the ‘National Question’]

[Social Conflict and Insurrection in the Andean Colonial World: Northern Potosí in the Seventeenth Century]

Elías José Palti 1st ed., fce Argentina, 2003 159 pp. 10.5 × 17 cm (4 × 6.8 in) Collection: Colección Popular. Subjects: History, Historiography, Politics, Government, Latin America ISBN 9505575300

Sergio Serulnikov 1st ed., fce Argentina, 2006 468 pp. 13.5 × 21 cm (5.3 × 8.3 in) Collection: Historia. Subjects: History, Medieval and modern history, Social and cultural history, Colonial New World, Conquest and colonization ISBN 9505576692

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he concepts associated with the term ‘nation’ are closely linked to a number of typically modern historical phenomena, among them bureaucracy, secularization, capitalism and revolution. If nations are a recent phenomenon, studies of the concept of nation are even more so. The author analyzes the work of historians who in recent decades have sought to change the direction of nationalist narrative and question the supposed objective, scientific nature of historical studies that claim that the nation and the actual concept of the nation are recent, arbitrary creations. Through a careful study, he shows that antigenealogical discourse, like its opposite, also rests on certain assumptions and holds its own blind spots. This important critical contribution is essential reading for a comprehension of the eminently political nature of the processes which nurture and transform the fictions of identity.

Elías José Palti (Buenos Aires, 1956) is an acknowledged expert in the field of intellectual history. He holds a degree from the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Buenos Aires. He has a master’s degree in social science from the Latin American School of Social Science (flacso) and a doctorate from the Department of History, University of California at Berkeley.

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his book analyzes transformations in colonial domination and ethnic resistance methods during the eighteenth century in the province of Chayanta, a region inhabited predominantly by indigenous communities in what is now northern Potosí, Bolivia. The period examined begins in the 1740s with the implementation of the Bourbon reforms and ends four decades later with the massive indigenous rebellion which threatened to put an end to the Spanish colonial regime and restore a pre-Hispanic political entity, the Incan Empire. The author reviews the repertoire of negotiations and peasant protests, and discusses crucial issues in New World colonial history and Andean ethnohistory. This book sheds light on the political culture that translated the discontent of the Andean peoples into collective practices that subverted the representations and mechanisms of the colonial powers. Sergio Serulnikov (Buenos Aires, 1952) has a degree in history from the Universidad Nacional de Rosario and is pursuing a doctorate at the University of Buenos Aires. This is an excellent work of historic interpretation which serves as an exemplary model of research methodology.

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[Words in the Time of Literature: A Heterodox History]

[The Power of Color: From the Material to the Symbolic in Andean Cultural Practices, Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries]

Carmen Benito-Vessels

Gabriela Siracusano 1st ed., fce Argentina, 2005 366 pp. 13.5 × 21 cm (approx. 5.3 × 8.3 in) Collection: Historia. Subjects: History, Specific topics, Colonial New World, Life and culture, Art, Architecture, Visual art, Painting ISBN 9505576250

1st ed., fce Mexico, 2007 332 pp. 13.5 × 21 cm (5.3 × 8.3 in) Collection: Lengua y estudios literarios. Subject: Literature ISBN 9681678710

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his book received the Jorge Barón Biza Award from the Argentinean Association of Art Critics (aaca) for the best contribution to research in its year, and was named the 2005-2006 best book of the year by the Association for Latin American Art (alaa). The material dimension of the cultural history of the Colonial period during the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries in the Andean region is analyzed through a history of its art as part of the cultural fabric, in particular color as it was manifested in artistic ideas, concepts, symbols, beliefs and sensations. Through an exhaustive study of Colonial images, the author shows how pre-Hispanic color associations permeate the structures of society, politics and economics, and ritual practices.

Gabriela Siracusano (Buenos Aires, 1960) has a degree in arts and a Ph.D. in liberal arts with a concentration in arts. She teaches at the University of Buenos Aires, and is a conicet (Argentinean Science and Technology Research Council) researcher and president of the Argentinean Center for Art Researchers. The author has conducted a rigorous, original study that goes beyond classical art history methods to include mineralogy, pharmacopoeia, medicine and alchemy, and books of secrets and natural history.

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his book studies language as a being—in the Orteguian sense and in its ontological manifestation—focusing on Spanish literature from the Middle Ages to the present. From a firm philological base, the author turns to discourse as a way of life and considers life as textual discourse or a palimpsest in which the being of the speaker is inserted. La palabra en el tiempo de las letras builds a bridge between classical philosophy, the Judeo-Christian tradition and contemporary philosophy. It presents a heterodox history of Spanish where God and the academics find themselves on the same page. Carmen Benito-Vessels has a degree in Romance literature from the University of Salamanca. She undertook graduate studies at the University of Lisbon and earned a doctorate in Hispanic studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is currently a professor of medieval Spanish literature at the University of Maryland, College Park. Dr. Benito-Vessels recounts a heterodox—unofficial, non-linear, not unambiguous—history of Spanish that will interest even nonspecialist readers. Readers will find a fascinating historical voyage through apparently disparate traditions and disciplines that brings Spanish to life, and will interest not only Spanish speakers.

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LITERATURE

La palabra en el tiempo de las letras. Una historia heterodoxa

El poder de los colores. De lo material a los simbólico en las prácticas culturales andinas. Siglos xvi-xviii

LITERATURE

Belleza roja

El fondo de las cosas

[The Essence of Things] Tomás Calvillo 1st ed., fce Mexico, 2006 103 pp. 13.5 × 21 cm (5.3 × 8.3 in) Collection: Letras mexicanas. Subject: Literature ISBN 9681678257

[Red Beauty] Bernardo Esquinca 1st ed., fce Mexico, 2005 103 pp. 13.5 × 21 cm (5.3 × 8.3 in) Collection: Letras mexicanas. Subject: Literature ISBN 9681674790

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omas Calvillo’s poetry speaks of the ocean, time, and love —the ideal and concrete banalities of any poetic imagination—with a polished aesthetic learning afforded by enigma. Midwife to the word—attending the birth of that which is to be said—Calvillo’s poetry embarks upon a revelation of the possible.

Tomás Calvillo, in addition to his studies in Mexican international policy and history, has a parallel career as a writer. As a poet he has written El ombligo del agua (1980), Pájaro de alambre (1981), Reunión (1988), 400 horas al alba (1988), Amor (1995) and Poesía reunida, 1979–1993 (1997). He has edited books of poems by Manuel Calvillo and Sergio Mondragón. He is also the author of the essays La llave de la poesía and Los caminos del libro. He is the coauthor, together with Javier Sicillia, of La revelación y los días (1988). He has written two works of fiction, Palabra que es la llave (1990) and El epistolario de Angelina (1997), the latter having also been adapted for the stage by the group El Rinoceronte Enamorado. He is the president of El Colegio de San Luis. Javier Sicilia has stated, ‘The experience of Tomas Calvillo has this characteristic: it is born of the millenian and religious practice of yoga, particularly kundalini yoga […] Contact with the words of the sacred Sikh book, that for centuries, day and night, has been read without interruption in the sacred place of that tradition, enabled the silence of the author’s meditation to find a new channel; poetry.’

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et in a post-humanist version of modernity where brutality and beauty coincide in the radical vindication of crime, violence, and elegant perversions under the all-too-powerful influence of wealth, Bernardo Esquinca’s novel is a psychological thriller, an example of hard-boiled detective fiction, and a wet dream extravaganza at the same time. A photographer of criminal news lives with the obsession of turning his job into a work of art; a beauty clinic prospers in isolation from the world and its moral standards—both stories are interwoven into a sinister climax that borders on apocalyptic vision. The bottom line is: what are we prepared to do in order to get just a small share of the sublime? Bernardo Esquinca studied journalism at the Western Technological Institute for Higher Studies (iteso). He is a founding editor of the newspaper Público in Guadalajara, and Diario Monitor in Mexico City—where he lives at present. He has published two collections of short stories, La mirada encendida (1993), and Fábulas oscuras (1996), as well as a book of essays Carretera perdida (2001). He is co-editor of the magazine Día Siete, and writes for the journals Letras Libres and Nexos. This novel draws on the techniques of the thriller to deal with important issues that had been virtually ignored in contemporary Mexican fiction. This is the opera prima of a very talented and promising Mexican novelist.

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Las malas costumbres

[Provençal Cabaret]

[Bad Habits]

Luis Felipe Fabre

Julieta García González

1st ed., fce Mexico, 2007 79 pp. 11 × 17 cm (4.3 × 6.7 in) Collection: Centzontle. Subject: Poetry ISBN 9681681002

1st ed., fce Mexico, 2005 94 pp. 13.5 × 21 cm (5.3 × 8.3 in) Collection: Letras mexicanas. Subject: Literature ISBN 9681675002

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abre’s poetry is a crossroads, a discursive intersection, a dialogue between elite and popular cultural traditions, the latter providing the inspiration for his finest poems and the wisdom to question power using parody. Carnavalesque gestures, a festive attitude and a sometimes ‘impertinent’ use of humor are devices the author employs in the pursuit of his book’s main goal, which its title reveals: to question hierarchies and orders; to revoke—albeit provisionally—all distance; to humble all things in order to allow the possibility of their rebirth.

Luis Felipe Fabre was born in Mexico City in 1974. In 1995 he received a poetry award in a literary competition sponsored by the magazine Punto de Partida published by the University of Mexico. Other poetry books by this author include Vida quieta (2000) and Una temporada en Mictlán (2003). On the basis of his work, fonca (National Foundation for Culture and the Arts) awarded him a young writers’ scholarship from 2004 to 2005.

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his collection includes seven stories written in a fluent and precise prose style. In these stories optimism is the seed of all sorts of ominous events while nihilism is shown as a feast for winners. A shrewd and restless interpreter of the values of the new generations, Julieta García González uses erotic edge and psychological portraits as means to knowledge. Her tales are the finest distillation of an unquiet sensibility that proceeds at a faster pace than the reader can predict. Julieta García González (b. ciudad de México, 1970) has received grants for her creative work from the Mexican Writers Association and the fonca (National Foundation for Culture and the Arts); she has been a resident writer at the JiménezPorter Writers’ House at the University of Maryland. Her first novel, Vapour, was acclaimed by the critics as a shrewd, insightful, and well accomplished piece of narrative. Bad Habits is her first collection of short stories.

In Fabre’s work, diverse voices meet; reminiscent of the works of François Villon and Arnaut Daniel, his poems have also been influenced by ranchera music and the songs of the Mexican Revolution. Fabre's poetry has claimed a unique space: the author has a strange and marvelous talent for injecting social issues into his writing in an unexpected and completely unpropaganda-like manner: although hunger, power and collective angst appear in his poems, they could certainly not be described as ‘socially-minded.’

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This is the first collection of short stories by an author that has stirred keen interest among critics and readers alike. She is now considered one of the most promising storytellers in Mexico’s literary scene.

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LITERATURE

Cabaret Provenza

LITERATURE

Bitácora del cruce. Textos poéticos para accionar, ritos fronterizos, videografitis, y otras rolas y roles

Entre la Ilustración y el expresionismo. Figuras de la literatura alemana

[Between the Enlightenment and Expressionism: Key Figures of German Literature]

[Logbook of the Crossing: Poems of Action, Border Rites, Video Fever and Other Trips and Tunes]

Rafael Gutiérrez Girardot 1st ed., fce Colombia, 2004 240 pp. 15.5 × 23 cm (6 × 9 in) Collection: Tierra Firme. Subject: Literature ISBN 9583800961

Guillermo Gómez-Peña

1st ed., fce Mexico, 2006 264 pp. 13.5 × 21 cm (5.3 × 8.3 in) Collection: Aula Atlántica. Subjects: Literature, Cultural studies ISBN 9681676564

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ne of the most active and creative Chicano writer-performers explores the techno-Chicano esthetic and searches for a new dialogue between Latin Americans who left their homelands following the American dream and those who stayed behind. This Logbook of the Crossing, is in itself a literary melting-pot where a new language is being forged. ‘The reader can start anywhere and read them [the parts] in any order.’ Borders, after all, are there for us to go across.

Guillermo Gómez-Peña was born in Mexico in 1955 and has been living in the United States since 1978. He studied linguistics at the University of Mexico and is the author of eight books in English and Spanglish which have been published in the United States and Europe. Gómez-Peña is the first Mexican artist to have received the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship and the Prix de la Parole at the International Theatre Festival of the Americas in Montreal. He is a writer, performance artist and educator, and has presented his work in Mexico, the United States, Canada, Australia, Cuba, and various countries in South America and Europe. This book gives a glimpse into what it means to be Chicano; an identity toughened by a difficult life in a country that is not one’s own; feelings that swing between the loneliness of being foreign and the celebration of rootedness. Gómez-Peña’s work has always tried to provoke; he does not attempt to ‘define’ an identity, but to question it: How is it formed? What beliefs, what prejudices, what acts define it? His work both reinforces and attacks the dominant stereotypes in American culture.

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he essays in this book introduce the reader to the landmark writers of German literature. While readers in the Hispanic world already know of the Olympian figures of Goethe, Schiller, Thomas Mann, Rilke and Kafka, this volume provides a closer acquaintance with their work. The majority of the writers highlighted in this collection were rediscovered in the second half of the twentieth century. Classic editions of the complete works of Lichtenberg, Lenz, Nietzsche and Hugo Ball, and of the expressionists Jakob van Hoddis, Ernst Stadler, Georg Heym, Georg Trakl and Gottfried Benn, were published between 1960 and 1980 in the peak of a rediscovery of the modern tradition; a rediscovery, it might even be said, of German literature itself, which had been condemned to oblivion by National Socialism. This revival of a rich chapter in European literature redefines the concept of the vanguard; not as the intent to rebel that has been often attributed to it but as a broader vision of the philosophical, religious and political complexity of early twentieth-century upheavals in Western societies. Rafael Gutiérrez Girardot (1928-2005) was one of Colombia’s most distinguished scholars of literature and philosophy. His books contributed to his reputation not only in Spanish-speaking countries but across Europe. His graduate studies were conducted under the existentialist philosopher Martin Heidegger and the notable theorist of modern lyric poetry, Hugo Friedrich. This book examines a fruitful period in German literature, one which also influenced the Spanish Vanguard movement. The author was one of the principal Colombian intellectuals of the second half of the twentieth century.

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Obras Completas I. Poesía/Cuento/Novela

[Complete Works I: Poetry/ Short Story/Novel]

[Modernism: Historic and Cultural Assumptions]

Efrén Hernández Rafael Gutiérrez Girardot

1st ed., fce Mexico, 2007 488 pp. 16.5 × 23 cm (6.5 × 9 in) Collection: Letras mexicanas. Subject: Literature ISBN 9681679016

1st ed., Montesinos, Spain, 1983 3rd ed., fce Colombia, 2004 170 pp. 15.5 × 23 cm (6 × 9 in) Collection: Tierra Firme. Subject: Literature ISBN 9583800953

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his book offers a new and enlightening vision of what Modernism represented in Hispanic-America and Spain in its close and inevitable relationship with nineteenth-century European cultural life. It places turn-of-the-century Spanish-literature in the context of European letters, and explores its sociological, philosophical, and cultural aspects. The book addresses the reciprocal relationship between bourgeois society and nineteenthcentury art, defining the tension between the two in the social and spiritual complexity of the period, dominated as it was by contradictory and ambiguous authors. ‘Modernism’ or ‘Modernity’ is used to clarify the complex European literature of the period whose influence, according to the opinion of many critics, extends into the present.

his is a volume of poetry, short stories, and novel. Its characters are things and beings that think, and in their generally digressive and nocturnal thinking they construct extraordinary landscapes and castles in the sky that are both representative and abstract at the same time. The contemporaries of Efrén Hernández (1904-1958) could have described him with the words that Rubén Darío applied to St. Francis of Assisi; ‘minimum and sweet.’ Octavio Paz described him, ‘He was a character from his stories—intelligent, shy, reticent, lost in circumlocutions that culminated in paradoxes, falsely modest, extravagant, and not so much distracted as absorbed; circling about evidence which was hidden but always about to appear’. In Hernández’s work, the interplay between destiny and vocation produces one of the most intriguing and evocative bodies of writing in the twentieth-century Mexican literary landscape.

Efrén Hernández was born in León, Guanajuato in 1904 and died in Mexico City in 1958. He abandoned his studies in law for a life in literature. He was the assistant editor of the literary journal América. An author faithful to his own creative world, he wrote in multiple genres: short stories, novels, poetry, theatre, and criticism. It was his 1928 story ‘Tachas’, one of the greatest examples of Mexican storytelling that first attracted notice.

Rafael Gutiérrez Girardot (1928-2005) was one of Colombia’s most distinguished scholars of literature and philosophy. His books contributed to his reputation not only in Spanish-speaking countries but across Europe. His graduate studies were conducted under the existentialist philosopher Martin Heidegger and the notable theorist of modern lyric poetry, Hugo Friedrich. This book examines Hispanic literature since the late nineteenth century within the European context. The author was one of the principal Colombian intellectuals of the second half of the twentieth century.

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With the passage of time, the work of Efrén Hernández continues to become ever more ‘irreplaceable’ in the opinion of new generations of readers and critics. In this edition of Hernández’s complete works, Alejandro Toledo has recovered his unpublished and scattered texts, in addition to his best known works.

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LITERATURE

Modernismo. Supuestos históricos y culturales

LITERATURE

Los grandes muertos

El tiempo vacío de la ficción. Las novelas argentinas de Eduardo Gutiérrez y Eugenio Cambaceres

[The Great Dead]

[Empty Time in Fiction: The Argentinean Novels of Eduardo Gutiérrez and Eugenio Cambaceres]

Luisa Josefina Hernández 1st ed., fce Mexico, 2007 542 pp. 16.5 × 23 cm (6.5 × 9 in) Collection: Letras mexicanas. Subject: Literature ISBN 9681678672

Alejandra Laera 1st ed., fce Argentina, 2004 342 pp. 15.5 × 23 cm (6 × 9 in) Collection: Tierra Firme. Subjects: Language, Literary theory, Analysis of authors and works ISBN 9505576161

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his volume contains twelve plays, grouped into four cycles. This subtle, yet surprising work raises disturbing questions about the contradictions that reign in Western culture. The networks of characters in the plays are continually faced with issues concerning relationships among families and between partners. They often find themselves in conflict with deeply-rooted cultural traditions as they face realities such as the need for affection, frustration, loneliness or indecision.

Luisa Josefina Hernández was born in Mexico City in 1928. She is one of Mexico’s leading playwrights; her plays include Los sordomudos, La llave del cielo, Los frutos caídos, Los duendes, Hécuba, and El orden de los factores. She has also written novels; La plaza de Puerto Santo, El valle que elegimos, La cólera secreta, La noche exquisita, and Apocalipsis cum figuris. Her work has a realistic structure, but a backdrop of unreality transforms life into a mere theatrical play. She has won the Magda Donato and Xavier Villarrutia awards. She is a professor emeritus of the University of Mexico. This book is an essential selection of the work of one of the most important Mexican dramatists. This collection of works presents an incomparable image of southeast Mexico.

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n Argentina, the modern novel and the idea of novel writing as a well-defined activity emerged in the 1880s. In this book, the author sheds new light on the work and influence of two writers of the period, showing the role their novels and the new genre played in newly-developing concepts of nation and national identity. Their novels, not allegories of the nation, but rather seeds that would grow into the idea of the nation in the popular imaginary, were located at the border of reality and invention. This book presents a detailed examination of the work of Eduardo Gutiérrez and Eugenio Cambaceres, of the publishing environment of the day and the reception of their novels in Argentinean culture, society and literature of the 1880s, thereby rescuing a neglected body of literature and making a valuable contribution to Latin American cultural studies.

Alejandra Laera (Buenos Aires, 1965) is a conicet (Argentinean Science and Technology Research Council) researcher and teaches Argentinean literature at the University of Buenos Aires. She has been a visiting professor at Stanford and Wesleyan Universities.

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Obras reunidas I. Novelas

[Mobile Empire]

[Collected Works: Novels]

Elva Macías

Carlos Montemayor

1st ed., fce Mexico, 2007 100 pp. 11 × 17 cm (4.3 × 6.7 in) Collection: Centzontle. Subject: Poetry ISBN 9681681010

1st ed., fce Mexico, 2006 518 pp. 19 × 26 cm (7.5 × 10.2 in) Collection: Obras reunidas. Subject: Literature ISBN 9681681118

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he ups and downs of our hostile, oppressive, complex world are the paints and canvas with which Elva Macías creates pictures of war. In the conflicts she describes, ‘the taste of victory is celebrated with breadcrumbs and tears,’ yet at the same time geographic and cultural borders fade, revealing the equality of all people. Well aware that the significance of her work extends beyond the realm of poetry, the author navigates seas of indifference and hopelessness, plotting a course to solid ground: the written word.

Elva Macías (1944) is the author of several books of poetry, including an anthology, Entre los reinos. She has also written children’s books; Informe de la lenteja y otros poemas, Si tienes un mágico lugar, and Un rayo de sol temprano, a collection of Spanish translations of poems by Russian children. She has received the 1993 Rosario Castellanos Chiapas Award for literature, the 1994 Carlos Pellicer National Poetry Award (for her book Ciudad contra el cielo) and the 2002 Ramón López Velarde Medal, awarded by the Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas.

n the two novels included in this first volume of Carlos Montemayor’s collected works, the reader will find an original concept; a consummate writer has brilliantly blended social criticism and documentary research with literary creation. Carlos Montemayor has recreated one the most tragic epochs of recent Mexican history, the Dirty War. His thorough research converts the voices of real characters into a far-reaching literary text.

Carlos Montemayor (b. 1947; Parral, Chihuahua, Mexico) is a novelist, poet and essayist. He has researched guerilla movements in Mexico, and is a literary critic of current and traditional writing in several different indigenous languages of Mexico. His work as a political analyst has been important in many respects. As a poet and literary translator, he has concentrated particularly on classical Latin and Greek poetry, and on several different currents in twentieth-century Latin American and European poetry. He has earned numerous awards within and outside Mexico, and his essays are essential reading for an understanding of current issues in Mexico. The novels of Carlos Montemayor offer the reader an alternative to the official version of the Dirty War, one of the most tragic episodes in recent Mexican history. These passionate novels by one of the most representative writers of current Mexican fiction combine intrigue and history with talented writing.

Elva Macías is one of Mexico’s most important poets. A dense, suggestive and delicate work, Imperio móvil criticizes a real, historical situation.

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21

LITERATURE

Imperio móvil

LITERATURE

Borges crítico

Cinco mil años de palabras

[Borges the Critic]

[Five Thousand Years of Words]

Sergio Pastormelo 1st ed., fce Argentina, 2007 197 pp. 13.5 × 21 cm (5.3 × 8.3 in) Collection: Tierra Firme. Subjects: Language, Literary theory, Analysis of authors and works ISBN 9789505577118

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orges, a passionate reader, frequently wrote about writers and books. His unique vision often stimulated controversy in the literary scene. In this book, the author examines a particular facet of Borges’s writing; his critical works and their repercussions on Argentinean literature. The author conducted a detailed analysis of essays on literature written by Borges for newspapers and magazines such as Sur and El Hogar, as well as those which were published separately or included in other books. A distinction is made between an ‘academic critic’ and a ‘writer critic,’ examining how criticism was an essential part of Borges’s body of work throughout his writing career. From this critical dialogue with the canonical texts of Borges’s work, the author questions the place of literary criticism, the objects of criticism, and its aims and limitations, placing Borges crítico firmly in the center of the contemporary debate. Sergio Pastormelo (Junín, Buenos Aires, 1962) holds a doctorate in literature from the National University of La Plata where he is currently a professor of the theory of criticism, as well as a professor of Argentinean literature at the Universidad Nacional del Sur. He has given seminars and talks on Borges in Argentina and France.

Carlos Prieto 2nd ed., fce Mexico, 2007 309 pp. 16.5 × 23 cm (6.5 × 9 in) Collection: Lengua y estudios literarios. Subject: Literature ISBN 9681683714

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ow did we break out of silence? This and other questions are a constant thread flowing through this careful review by Carlos Prieto which provides a panoramic overview of the study of language. In the words of Carlos Fuentes, the extraordinary charm of this work is that it invites us with singular erudition to look again at things we thought we knew about language and discover what we did not know about these things. The book is a linguistic voyage that leads us through questions concerning the very origin of languages, verbal imagination, the essence of language, and cultural pluralism. However the most obvious merit of this work is that it confirms what artists and writers have claimed for thousands of years: the power of the word is a magical vehicle of creation and destruction.

Carlos Prieto is a cellist and writer. He studied in Hungary, Geneva, and New York, and has played with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of London, the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, the National Orchestra of Spain, the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, among many others. He has made more than 70 recordings, including the complete Bach Suites, works by Shostakovich, Martinu, Bruch, and an extensive series of Latin American music for the cello. In addition, Carlos Prieto has also published with Fondo de Cultura Económica since 1993. He is the author of De la urss a Rusia: tres décadas de experiencias y observaciones de un testigo (1992) and Las aventuras de un violonchelo: historias y memorias (1998). This book can already be called fce classic. The present new edition contains a new chapter entitled ‘The Sino-Tibetan Family of Languages,’ and includes the prologue written by Carlos Fuentes for the original edition.

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F O N DO DE C ULTURA ECO N Ó MI C A

Cantar de lejanía. Antología personal

[Literature of New Spain]

[Poems of Distance: A Personal Anthology]

Alfonso Reyes 1st ed., sep, 1946 5th ed., fce Mexico, 2007 153 pp. 11 × 17 cm (4.3 × 6.7 in) Collection: Biblioteca Universitaria de Bolsillo. Subject: Literature ISBN 9681683293

Juan Manuel Roca

1st ed., fce Colombia, 2005 280 pp. 13.5 × 21 cm (5.3 × 8.3 in) Collection: Tierra Firme. Subject: Literature ISBN 958380102X

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sweeping account of the literature of Mexico, the six chapters of this book cover authors and works from indigenous poetry to the ‘critical era’ of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Additional critical commentaries contribute to an enjoyable review of the development of Mexican literature over four centuries. Reyes does not overlook indigenous literature and its fusion with European letters as he attempts to locate the emergence of Mexican culture—a difficult task, in the author’s view; ‘To try to determine when what was Spanish became Mexican is an enigma worthy of Zeno. The issue is just as elusive in literature as it has been in diplomatic relations.’ This text is required reading for anyone seeking to understand Mexican culture and literature.

Alfonso Reyes was a poet and essayist whose works profoundly influenced Mexican culture and literature. He was a member of Ateneo de la Juventud (a turn-of-the-century group of intellectuals) together with Pedro Henríquez Ureña, Antonio Caso and José Vasconcelos. In 1943 he helped found El Colegio Nacional (an institution that brings together prominent Mexican thinkers) and from 1957 to 1959 he directed the Academia Mexicana de la Lengua (Mexican Academy of the Spanish Language). This book is essential reading for students of Mexican and Latin American literature and culture. The work contains Reyes’s now-classic discussion of one of the most enigmatic periods in Mexican cultural history.

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J

uan Manuel Roca is recognized as one of the most quintessential Colombian poets of his time. His poetry is one vast reflection on achieving freedom through imagination. This personal anthology brings together the recurring themes that he normally engages in: death, silence, water, words, night, and time. The anthology includes twelve books—from Luna de ciegos (1975) to Las hipótesis de Nadie (2005), which received the 2004 Colombia Ministry of Culture National Poetry Award—together with a number of previously unpublished poems. This edition includes a foreword by Chilean poet Gonzalo Rojas and an afterword by Spanish publisher Manuel Borras.

Juan Manuel Roca is a Colombian poet, fiction author, and essayist, born in Medellín in 1946. His books of poetry include Luna de ciegos, Ciudadano de la noche, and La farmacia del ángel. He is also the author of two books of essays, Museo de encuentros and Cartógrafa memoria, a short story collection Las plagas secretas y otros cuentos, and the novel Esa maldita costumbre de morir. Cantar de lejanía received the 2007 Jose Lezama Lima Casa de las Américas Special Award ‘for bringing together, in verses written over the span of thirty years, the best and most personal of a compelling oeuvre.’ A foreword by Gonzalo Rojas and afterword by Manuel Borras enrich the vision of the collection.

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LITERATURE

Letras de la Nueva España

LITERATURE

La ruta del Aqueronte

Siete ensayos sobre Walter Benjamin

[The Journey of the Acheron]

[Seven Essays on Walter Benjamin]

Eduardo Rojas Rebolledo

Beatriz Sarlo

1st ed., fce Mexico, 2006 217 pp. 13.5 × 21 cm (5.3 × 8.3 in) Collection: Letras mexicanas. Subject: Literature ISBN 9681678893

1st ed., fce Argentina, 2000 93 pp. 11 × 17 cm (4.3 × 6.8 in) Collection: Colección Popular. Subjects: Language, Literary theory, Analysis of authors and works ISBN 9505573839

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amora, Spain, 1282. An old minstrel finally fulfils a pledge he made a long time ago—to write down the story he heard from a squire by the name of Aira de Silos. It is the bewitching tale of a mission entrusted by the king, Alfonso, to his best knights: the custody of a relic of St Peter to be transported to Santiago. But this is just the beginning—as it unfolds, The Journey of the Acheron unveils for us the entire medieval world thanks to the author’s uncommon literary expertise. In this first novel he is able to captivate the reader with a tale of love and disappointment, a veritable journey through the darkest places of fear, pain and evil.

Eduardo Rojas Rebolledo (b. 1970) is a heart-felt South Californian. He studied history at the University of Mexico and at the University of Santiago de Compostela. He is the author of two collections of short stories, De luces y sombras (1994), and Cuentos crueles (2004). He has also published two collections of essays: El Cid entre líneas (1997), and De alquimia e imposibles (2004). At present he lives in Galicia, Spain. The Journey of the Acheron solidly confirms Eduardo Rojas Rebolledo’s promising literary career, which began with two previous books of fiction that drew the attention of the critics. After this first novel, written in a firm narrative pace and a surprising tale-telling impulse, Eduardo Rojas Rebolledo has been acclaimed as one of the best writers of the newest Mexican fiction. The blend of intrigue, historical settings, adventure, and romantic entanglements is sure to make this book a passionate experience for any reader.

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I

n the seven essays in this book, the author, with incomparable clarity and literary style, describes aspects of the life and work of Walter Benjamin, showing how they relate to his influence on contemporary thought, and to current readings of his work. These texts are about Benjamin’s flight from the Nazi regime and suicide at the border, and his resistance to academic requirements. They also address his way of constructing knowledge, which did not find a place or legitimacy in Second World War Europe. Benjamin’s method of composition; the essential value of quotations and contrasts, his atypical choice and use of materials, and the relationship between art criticism and philosophy are some of the points from which Sarlo proposes to begin reading Benjamin. Siete ensayos sobre Walter Benjamin also includes a long article in which echoes of La obra de arte en la época de la reproductibilidad técnica [The Work of Art in the Age of Technical Reproduction] can be related to a reading of certain contemporary practices and discourse.

Beatriz Sarlo (Buenos Aires, 1942) taught Argentinean literature in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Buenos Aires for twenty years. She is currently one of Argentina’s most important intellectuals, and her books have been translated in Brazil, Great Britain, the United States and Italy. Particularly moving is the reading that Sarlo gives of that ‘truly Benjaminian pastime’—stickers. Indeed, Benjamin’s critical work can be read in the light of a childlike use of pre-fabricated images.

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F O N DO DE C ULTURA ECO N Ó MI C A

Luna bajo el árbol

[Moon Beneath the Tree]

[The Lantern of the Dead (and Other Fantastic Stories)] Álvaro Uribe 1st ed., fce Mexico, 1988 2nd ed., fce Mexico, 2006 160 pp. 13.5 × 21 cm (5.3 × 8.3 in) Collection: Letras mexicanas. Subject: Literature ISBN 9681679903

Jaime Velasco Luján 1st ed., fce Mexico, 2007 92 pp. 11 × 17 cm (4.3 × 6.7 in) Collection: Centzontle. Subject: Poetry ISBN 968168091X

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his is a new, extended edition of the book of short stories that Uribe published at Fondo de Cultura Económica in 1988. Each of the eight stories (two of which—‘The Fountain’ and ‘Simón’s Last Dream’—are new to this edition) are remarkable for their precise and vigorous treatment of plot, the proficient use of narrative rhythm and the introduction of perplexing scenes where common and fantastic events can occur side by side under the compelling force of his narrative style. A Mexican student in Paris, a medieval scribe, and a couple stranded in an airport are some of the protagonists in these stories; all of them are about to witness unexpected fractures of reality.

Álvaro Uribe (b. Mexico City, 1953) studied philosophy at the University of Mexico. He has served as cultural attaché in Nicaragua and as cultural counsellor for the diplomatic service in France. During his first sojourn in Paris (1978-1984) he was the editor of the bilingual magazine Altaforte. He subsequently coordinated the publications of the National Council for Culture and Arts (conaculta) in Mexico. He has published three novels, La lotería de San Jorge (1995), Por su nombre (2001), and El taller del tiempo (2003), which won the first issue of the Fiction Prize Antonin Artaud, in 2004. His works have been translated to French, English, and German. He has also published shorter fiction and essays.

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una bajo el árbol is a thoughtful, patient contemplation of a landscape from countless perspectives, seen under the subtle changes of the interplay of light and shadow. It is not so much the poems themselves that evoke awe—their beauty or wisdom acknowledge a simplicity that is often ignored—as much as an unspoken thread that runs through them: a blend of chance and grace that results from overlooking surface appearances. With a poetic voice that depends more on the implied than the explicit, Jaime Velasco Luján captures both the fleeting instant and the underlying constant that carries forward into a relentless future.

Jaime Velasco Luján was born in Huajuapan de León, Oaxaca in 1949. He studied Spanish literature at the University of Mexico. He has published two books, Cuaderno (2001) and En el ojo de la gaviota (2004). Amid the flurry of verbal noise, the poems of Luna bajo el árbol evoke a contemplative silence that precedes creative activity. The tradition of Spanish language haiku style poems was brought to Mexico by José Juan Tablada, and Velasco Luján carries it on with this book.

Literary critics widely agree that Uribe is not just one of the best storytellers of his generation, but one of the best Mexican writers of fiction ever. The short stories included in this volume have a way to grasp the reader’s attention thanks to the use of surprising, fantastic plots and a skillful narrative style.

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25

LITERATURE

La linterna de los muertos (y otros cuentos fantásticos)

LITERATURE

El libro vacío. Los años falsos

La santa

[The Empty Book. Deceptive Years]

[The Saint]

Josefina Vicens

1st ed., fce Mexico, 2007 119 pp. 15 × 23 cm (6 × 9 in) Collection: Letras Mexicanas. Subject: Poetry ISBN 968167975X

José Javier Villarreal

1st ed., fce Mexico, 2006 336 pp. 11 × 17 cm (4.3 × 6.7 in) Collection: Letras mexicanas. Subject: Literature ISBN 9681678958

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osé Javier Villarreal is one of the quintessential authors of contemporary poetry, part of the thriving cultural movement centered around Mexico’s northern border, although it actually resists identification with a particular region. In the poems in this book, Villarreal defines those precarious corners of the heart that permit no explanations, places that can only be explored by the vibrant strength and sound of poetry.

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he Empty Book amounts to a giddy dive into the very folds of existence through the words of a character who—more than thinking for and about himself—exists as writing of his own self. As the book unfolds the reader falls into a trap and a paradox—we are reading the very stuff that José García, the narrator, has denied and refuted over and over. In Deceptive Years the main character, a servile assistant to a congressman, is used to portray the corruption of the political system. But this, instead of determining a clearcut plot and a well-defined subject matter, serves as triggering point for a frenetic spinning around the same elementary emptiness of the previous book. This emptiness is perhaps the only legacy that the protagonist’s father left to his son. Josefina Vicens (b. Villahermosa, Tabasco, 1911; d. Mexico City, 1988) studied philosophy, literature and history at the University of Mexico. She was a writer of political editorials in newspapers, and a bullfight commentator; she also had a long career as scriptwriter for the film industry. She published two novels: El libro vacío (1958), which won the Xavier Villaurrutia Prize and was translated into French in 1963, and Los años falsos (1982).

Jose Javier Villareal (Tijuana, Baja California, 1959) teaches at the Faculty of Liberal Arts of the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, where he was awarded the Premio a las Artes. He has also received the Aguascalientes National Poetry Award and the Alfonso Reyes National Poetry Award. He produces and presents the poetry program Las aventuras sigilosas for Radio Nuevo León, 102.1 fm.

With this book, Jose Javier Villarreal confirms his privileged place within contemporary poetry, a place granted by poetry itself when one lives within it. His work is an excellent starting point for the reader who would like to begin to explore Mexican poetry.

This book brings together in one volume the only two pieces of fiction ever written by Vicens but which sufficed to establish her narrative style as one of the hidden marvels of contemporary Mexican fiction. For many years Vicens’ works were unavailable to the public. This book represents an invaluable recovery and an editorial event long awaited by critics and readers alike.

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F O N DO DE C ULTURA ECO N Ó MI C A

La semiótica. Teorías del signo y el lenguaje en la historia

[Pouring Rain]

[Semiotics. Theories of Sign and Language in History]

Eraclio Zepeda 1st ed., fce Mexico, 2006 253 pp. 16.5 × 23 cm (6.5 × 9 in) Collection: Letras Mexicanas. Subject: Literature ISBN 9681679806

Mauricio Beuchot 1st ed., fce Mexico, 2004 208 pp. 11 × 17 cm (4.3 × 6.7 in) Collection: Breviarios. Subject: Semiotics, Philosophy of language ISBN 9681671899

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ouring Rain has its own place in the vast—and oftentimes brilliant—tradition of Latin American fiction. Set in a historical background, it tells the love story of Juana Urbina, a rich well-to-do girl in nineteenth century San Cristóbal de Las Casas. Well educated, rebellious, and brave, the young girl’s character is an impressive illustration of all the traits that characterize the remarkable idiosyncrasy of Chiapas.

Eraclio Zepeda (b. Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas, 1937) studied social anthropology at Veracruz State University. He lectured as university professor in Cuba and the People’s Republic of China, and was a news correspondent in the former ussr. His work depicts the social life and history of his native Chiapas. He has been awarded the National Prize for Narrative, the Xavier Villaurrutia Prize, the Chiapas Prize and the distinction as ibby author (International Board of Books for Young People). At fce he has published Benzulul and Asalto nocturno, as well as two collective poetry volumes, La espiga amotinada, and Ocupación de la palabra. With the publication of this novel—first in a tetralogy—Fondo de Cultura Económica gives new impulse to the promotion of its most cherished authors. The remarkable achievement of the narrative voice in this novel offers good confirmation that authors will always tell the stories they feel most strongly about, and that they will always go back to reinvent those same stories.

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emiotics. Theories of Sign and Language in History offers the reader a historical survey of the most important elements of semiotics by relating them to the philosophy of language and by highlighting the origin of many modern and contemporary concepts. This is not an in-depth study of signs and their operating modes but an introduction to the vast field of semiotics from a wide historical perspective. The author begins with a treatment of the Greek and medieval theories of signs, paying special attention to Thomas Aquinas’ and Raymond Lull’s philosophy of language. He then presents scholastic authors from the Spanish Golden Age and from the Mexican colonial period. Subsequently he characterizes modern semiotics in such authors as Locke, Leibnitz, Peirce, and Morris. Finally, he studies the modern analytic interpretation of language and the structuralist approach. Mauricio Beuchot (b. Torreón, 1950) is a full time researcher at the Centre for Classical Studies in the Philological Research Institute at the University of Mexico. He is a member of the Mexican Academy of Language, and of the Mexican Academy of History. This book offers an ample historical panorama of semiotics that will be useful for students and professors alike. Since semiotic analysis can be applied to a wide variety of fields this general introduction to the subject will prove useful to readers from virtually any academic area.

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PHILOSOPHY

Las grandes lluvias

PHILOSOPHY

Historia de la filosofía del lenguaje

Filosofía de la liberación latinoamericana

[Philosophy of Language. A History]

[Latin American Philosophy of Liberation]

Mauricio Beuchot

Horacio Cerutti Guldberg

1st ed., fce Mexico, 2005 327 pp. 11 × 17 cm (4.3 × 6.7 in) Collection: Breviarios. Subject: Philosophy of language ISBN 9681675223

3rd ed., fce Mexico, 2006 528 pp. 13.5 × 21 cm (5.3 × 8.3 in) Collection: Filosofía. Subject: Philosophy of Liberation, Latin American Philosophy ISBN 9681678206

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ur times have been termed the ‘era of the linguistic turn’ due to the great interest that contemporary philosophy has shown for the study of language. Such ‘turn’ is manifest in the many schools and approaches to this subject, ranging from philosophic hermeneutics to analytical philosophy, from structuralism to transcendental pragmatism. In this context, Mauricio Beuchot proposes a historical reconsideration of the philosophy of language arguing that only through the critical appreciation of its past can the reader grasp the full compass of what this discipline has already been and what it will become. This book offers the reader a historical survey of the most important authors and schools that throughout history have occupied themselves with, and have theorized about language. The chronological presentation is divided into Antiquity, Middle Ages, Modern times, and Contemporary trends.

Mauricio Beuchot (b. Torreón, 1950) is a full time researcher at the Centre for Classical Studies in the Philological Research Institute at the University of Mexico. He is a member of the Mexican Academy of Language, and of the Mexican Academy of History. This book offers an ample historical panorama of the philosophy of language that will be of use to students and professors alike. This volume will also prove very useful to students of philosophy of language and it can serve as a textbook. It includes an extended bibliography that will guide students through their further reading.

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ore than three decades have passed since the emergence in Argentina of what came to be known as Philosophy of Liberation, and twenty-two years since this book was first published by the Fondo de Cultura Económica. The publication of this corrected and expanded third edition is a response to the unprecedented relevance of an issue once again brought to the forefront by developments in Latin America. The author managed to produce a work that presents original philosophical thought anchored in Latin American issues and realities.

Horacio Cerutti Guldberg (Mendoza, Argentina, 1950) has taught in Argentina, Ecuador and Mexico. He is a researcher at the Centro Coordinador y Difusor de Estudios Latinoamericanos and a professor at the Faculty of Liberal Arts at the University of Mexico. He was president of the Asociación Filosófica de México from 1996 to 1998. The author was one of the first scholars to locate this philosophical movement in its historical and analytical setting. The book includes a stimulating bibliography of the books fundamental for an understanding of this Latin American current of thought. ‘Horacio Cerutti is one of the members of the generation in which what is known as the Philosophy of Liberation crystallized. His testimony is of special importance within the history of philosophy. This book treats a controversial subject with great clarity and objectivity.’ Leopoldo Zea

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F O N DO DE C ULTURA ECO N Ó MI C A

Leo Strauss: el arte de leer. Una lectura de la interpretación straussiana de Maquiavelo, Hobbes, Locke y Spinoza

[An Ethic for the Twenty-First Century: Ethics and Human Rights in a Postmetaphysical Time]

[Leo Strauss and the Art of Reading: A Reading on the Straussian Interpretation of Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke and Spinoza]

Osvaldo Guariglia 1st ed., fce Argentina, 2002 159 pp. 10.5 × 17 cm (4 × 6.8 in) Collection: Colección Popular. Subjects: Philosophy, Ethics ISBN 9505575033

Claudia Hilb 1st ed., fce Argentina, 2005 356 pp. 13.5 × 21 cm (5.3 × 8.3 in) Collection: Filosofía. Subjects: Philosophy, Ethics, Political Philosophy, Politics, Government, Political Theory ISBN 9505576412

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o twentieth-century philosophy, the modern notion of the Subject has led to two irreconcilable extremes; the complete negation of reason as the ultimate court of appeal for the resolution of intersubjective conflicts, and the resulting extreme relativism of theoretical epistemological positions and practical normative positions. Against this negative scenario, the author suggests that it is still not only possible, but even necessary to speak of ‘reason’ in philosophy and to formulate genuine philosophical problems. The essays in Una ética para el siglo xxi present the basic elements of the debate between these two opposing trends in contemporary ethics; universalism and particularism. Their consequences for politics are analyzed, the weakness in the relativist positions with respect to human rights and values issues are examined, and notions of identity, autonomy and independence are considered.

Osvaldo Guariglia (Buenos Aires, 1938) has a first degree in literature and a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Buenos Aires, where he is a professor of ethics and director of the Philosophy Institute. He is a conicet (Argentinean Science and Technology Research Council) principal researcher. Specialists in the area will savor the careful rhetoric, while the general reader will have the opportunity to audit a rigorous, demanding but accessible debate.

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his book treats the work of the German philosopher Leo Strauss, focusing on the Straussian reading of Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke and Spinoza, classics of modernity. The path is particularly complex, for his writing is esoteric; replete with insinuations, ironies, codes, and clues both true and false. According to the author, Leo Strauss’s interpretive task is founded on a conviction of the importance of the distinction to classical political philosophers between esoteric and exoteric writing. This has at least two dimensions; one referring to the need for the philosopher to defend himself in the city court, and the other defending the city from philosophical knowledge; that is, the subversiveness inherent in the search for the truth. Leo Strauss: el arte de leer is a thorough, enlightening analysis which focuses on the question of how Strauss read the modern philosophers in order to throw light on the central premises of Strauss’s own philosophy and the aporias that supported his brilliant work. Claudia Hilb (Buenos Aires, 1955) has a bachelor’s and master’s degree in sociology from the University of Paris viii, a specialization in Latin American studies from the University of Paris iii Sorbonne Nouvelle, and a Ph.D. in social science from the University of Buenos Aires Faculty of Social Science, and is a conicet (Argentinean Science and Technology Research Council) researcher.

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PHILOSOPHY

Una ética para el siglo xxi. Ética y derechos humanos en un tiempo posmetafísico

PHILOSOPHY

Desde la perplejidad. Ensayos sobre la ética, la razón y el diálogo

Pensar sin certezas. Montaigne y el arte de conversar

[From Perplexity: Essays on Ethics, Reason, and Dialogue]

[Thinking without Certainty: Montaigne and the Art of Conversation]

Javier Muguerza 4th ed, fce Spain, 2006 710 pp. 16 × 23 cm (6.3 × 9 in) Collection: Filosofía. Subject: Philosophy ISBN 8437505976

Jesús Navarro Reyes 1st ed., fce Spain, 2007 352 pp. 13.5 × 21 cm (5.3 × 8.3 in) Collection: Filosofía. Subject: Philosophy ISBN 8437506026

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ne might begin with the assumption that one function of philosophy is to safeguard rationality. But the uses of reason are multiple: logical reason, analytic reason, instrumental reason and, what matters most here, dialogic or communicative reason. Is it truly possible to reconstruct the process that led to the latter? Javier Muguerza thinks so. The ‘death of God’ or, less definitively, the decline of religion and its replacement by philosophy, has led philosophy to postulate ‘a transcendental subject’ as a secularized substitute (Kant), a ‘transcendental reason’ (Apel) and finally a quasi-transcendentality of the human species in the utopia of an ‘ideal communication’ (Habermas). This book is in fact a unique ‘guide for the perplexed,’ particularly because of its paradoxical goal. In contrast with the usual meaning of a ‘guide,’ it does not aim to help the reader to find the way; rather it invites the reader to choose perplexity and achieve the ‘gift of perplexity’ of Socrates and Wittgenstein.

Javier Muguerza is a professor of ethics at the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia in Spain. He is the author, among other works, of La razón sin esperanza (1986), La alternativa del disenso (1990) and Ética, disenso y derechos humanos (2000). He has headed the academic committee of the Enciclopedia Iberoamericana de Filosofía [Latin American Encyclopedia of Philosophy] since it was established, and was cofounder and first director of the Instituto de Filosofía of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, of whose journal Isegoría he is a coeditor.

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M

ontaigne’s essays are often considered to contain the origin of modern subjectivism: unable to overcome his skeptical crisis, he began philosophy’s shift towards the interiority of the self, testing himself in his writing and turning in upon himself. Nevertheless it should not be forgotten that his essays lacked a firm—or fallacious—support for certainty. For this reason, Montaigne does not offer us a set of simple rules for a lone person to follow in self-sufficient exercise of his reason. Rather, conscious that uncertainty can never be dispelled, he concentrates on the exercise of conversation, assuming the relationship and dealings with the other to be constituent elements of his own identity. In this book, Jesús Navarro critically reviews the existing literature of this cornerstone of modernity. He begins with the problem of action, describing his dilemma between the temptation to withdraw and the need for political action. He then focuses on language and textuality as means to the development of a full subjectivity that is capable of recognizing itself only through relationships of exchange established with the other. Lastly, he studies the gnoseological and ontological implications of this art of conversing with which Montaigne tried to find a skeptical exit from the Platonic cave.

Jesús Navarro Reyes is a professor of philosophy at the Universidad de Sevilla. He has been a visiting researcher at the Sorbonne and the Universities of Chicago and Berkeley. He has published articles in academic journals and is the author of La extrañeza de sí mismo (2005).

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F O N DO DE C ULTURA ECO N Ó MI C A

[Challenges of the Society to Come]

[Truths and Wisdom of Marxism: Reactions of a Political Tradition Facing ‘Crisis’]

Luis Villoro 1st ed., fce Mexico, 2007 228 pp. 13.5 × 21 cm (5.3 × 8.3 in) Collection: Filosofía. Subject: Philosophy ISBN 9789681681845

Elías José Palti 1st ed., fce Argentina, 2005 232 pp. 13.5 × 21 cm (5.3 × 8.3 in) Collection: Filosofía. Subjects: Philosophy, Ethics, Political philosophy ISBN 9505576579

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his series of texts on the contemporary state of Marxism by fundamental political thinkers in the area investigates what appears to be the final crisis of this political tradition as a ‘cultural phenomenon.’ Unlike traditional works of political philosophy, this book does not seek to formulate political or philosophical answers, nor to offer potential solutions or alternatives to changes in the political landscape. Rather it attempts to clarify the nature of the questions posed by the situation and to show why Marxism’s current crisis contains some fundamental keys for doing so.

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an a society eliminate inequality while excluding broad sectors of its population from social benefits? Do the new democracies that have risen out of the defeat of totalitarian regimes ensure political freedom for their citizens? Is the search for a common good not neglected when the defense of individual freedoms takes priority? Is it possible to confront the phenomenon of globalization without ignoring cultural differences? Upon what ethical principles should a new state be built if it is to achieve social unity amid a multiplicity of concepts of the common good? These are some of the questions that Luis Villoro examines in Los retos de la sociedad por venir. This book offers the reader a profound analysis of three crucial present-day issues: justice, democracy, and multiculturalism.

Luis Villoro is a member of El Colegio Nacional and researcher emeritus of the University of Mexico. fce has published La idea y el ente en la filosofía de Descartes (1965), El concepto de ideología y otros ensayos (1985), El pensamiento moderno: filosofía del Renacimiento (1992), En México, entre libros: pensadores del siglo xx (1994), Los grandes momentos del indigenismo en México (1996), El poder y el valor. Fundamentos de una ética política (1997), and De la libertad a la comunidad (2001).

Elías José Palti (Buenos Aires, 1956) is an acknowledged expert in the field of intellectual history. He holds a degree from the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Buenos Aires. He has a master’s degree in social science from the Latin American School of Social Science (flacso) and a doctorate from the Department of History, University of California at Berkeley. Elías Palti presents a frank, conscientious review of the political tradition of Marxism; as a thinker removed from ideological and intellectual agendas, he serves as an eminently suitable author of this book.

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This book proposes mechanisms for multicultural dialogue and regulatory canons for the transformation into a pluralist state. It opens the political debate on issues essential to the shaping of democracy in Latin America. This book reflects on some of the ethical problems in building a liberal democracy and contributes to the philosophical construction of an inclusive society.

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31

PHILOSOPHY

Los retos de la sociedad por venir

Verdades y saberes del marxismo. Reacciones de una tradición política ante su “crisis”

POLITICS

Gobernanza y gestión pública

La muerte y la resurrección de la representación política

[Governance and Public Management]

[The Death and Resurrection of Political Representation]

Luis F. Aguilar Juan Abal Medina

1st ed., fce Mexico, 2006 234 pp. 16.5 × 23 cm (6.5 × 9 in) Collection: Administración pública. Subject: Public Administration ISBN 9681681339

1st ed., fce Argentina, 2004 132 pp. 10.5 × 17 cm (4 × 6.8 in) Collection: Colección Popular. Subjects: Politics, Government, Theory and History, Perspectives on History ISBN 9505576218

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he model of political representation, in the form that it has come to be known in the modern world, currently appears to be facing an irreversible crisis. This crisis is characterized on the one hand by a fragmented and increasingly heterogeneous society, an apathetic electorate quick to distrust those in power, and an oscillating body of public opinion that follows the lead of the media; and on the other hand by political parties incapable of rallying social interests, leaders whose actions are subordinate to fluctuating popularity rating statistics, and a delegitimized political system that survives only at the price of its ever-increasing self-referentiality. Is it still possible to find new institutional and symbolic mechanisms that can reconcile politics with society? The author takes a historical-conceptual tour of the various models that have been adopted by representation, exploring new forms of political legitimacy and participation.

Juan Abal Medina (Buenos Aires, 1968) holds a doctorate in political science from the Latin American School of Social Sciences (flacso), and is a conicet (Argentinean National Science and Technology Research Council) researcher and professor of political science at the Universidad de San Andrés and the Universidad Nacional de General San Martín. This book is a valuable update of the debate on political representation and the legitimation of democracy. Abal Medina does not fill the text with gratuitous quotations, but writes with great clarity and sound knowledge.

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T

he ruling capability of governments is now at the core of theoretical and public preoccupation. Are governments able to govern? Can they truly guide their society towards a better state of affairs? These questions are by no means unjustified—the social damage produced by the economic and political crises in welfare States has made it clear that not all actions from the government are positive governing actions. The government itself can be a factor of misgovernment for its society. This book analyses governmental action and introduces a new approach thanks to the concept of governance. It evaluates the conditions of contemporary ruling actions and redefines the well-known question of governing capability. The author discuses the principles and resources of new public management—especially those related to strategic and quality management which are crucial in the making of an efficient government. Luis F. Aguilar, professor at the Metropolitan Autonomous University in Mexico, is considered an authority on the field of Public Management and Politics. He lectures regularly on politics and public management in Latin America and Spain and is currently a member of the un Committee of Experts on Public Administration. Luis F. Aguilar is internationally recognized as one of the leading Mexican researchers. This book presents innovative analysis on how political power is exerted and offers a fresh perspective using new concepts such as governance.

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F O N DO DE C ULTURA ECO N Ó MI C A

Nuevo país, nueva pobreza

[New Country, New Poverty]

[Women, Sexuality, Internet, and Politics. The New Latin American Voters]

María del Carmen Feijoó 2nd ed., FCE Argentina, 2003, expanded edition 158 pp. 10.5 × 17 cm (4 × 6.8 in) Collection: Colección Popular. Subjects: Politics, Government, Society, Latin America, Sociology, Economy ISBN 9505575718

Jaime Durán Barba and Santiago Nieto 1st ed., fce Mexico, 2006 545 pp. 13.5 × 21 cm (5.3 × 8.3 in) Collection: Política y derecho. Subject: Politics, Latin America ISBN 9789681681265

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his book offers a rare opportunity for those who wish to understand how contemporary Latin American societies function. The authors develop a provocative argument based on two questions—what attracts Latin American voters? and why do new voters in Latin America, particularly youngsters, despise politics? The answers to these questions are presented in the book, but the task is left for the reader to infer and question the role and significance of such concepts as democracy, voters, and political awareness in Latin America.

Jaime Durán Barba is a political consultant with more than 20 years of experience. He is founder and director of the polling agency Informe Confidencial (Confidential Report). A former director of the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (flacso), he has published several books on political marketing, and has lectured at international forums on applied politics and the study of public opinion. Santiago Nieto is the Executive Director of the polling agency Informe Confidencial. He is a professor in the Department of Sociology at the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador. He has written on applied politics and the study of public opinion, and has lectured in the USA, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica and Ecuador.

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ver the long term, evolving economic and social processes have effected a new social structure in Argentina. A new country, new poverty: with the transformation of social actors of the past, collective, individual and everyday relationships have come to make up a society very different from that of thirty or forty years ago. A model of society in which more or less fixed social positions could be defined has been called into question by persistent and increasing poverty, a fragmented social safety net and a labor market in which uncertainty reigns. Even the experience of poverty itself has changed radically. The new and evolving scenario motivates a series of questions to which quantitative or statistical answers are insufficient. What is the impact of perpetually high instability in the construction of the social actors’ subjectivity? In Nuevo país, nueva pobreza, the author takes a perceptive, original view, asking how these actors find, name and act on new territory in the structure of society.

María del Carmen Feijoó graduated from the University of Buenos Aires, where she now teaches, in sociology. She is also the Argentina Liaison Officer of the United Nations Population Fund and a CONICET (Argentinean Science and Technology Research Council) researcher.

Jaime Durán and Santiago Nieto are two well-known political consultants who work as advisers on political marketing in Latin America. This book reveals new information on politics, democracy and political awareness, especially among women and young people, in Latin America.

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POLITICS

Mujer, sexualidad, internet y política. Los nuevos electores latinoamericanos

POLITICS

La democracia y sus quimeras. Diálogo entre un escéptico y una idealista

México ante el mundo: tiempo de definiciones

[Democracy and its Chimeras: Dialogue Between a Skeptic and an Idealist]

[Mexico and the World: A Time of Definitions] Luis Herrera-Lasso M. (coordinator)

Rossana Fuentes-Berain and Gerardo Laveaga 1st ed., fce Mexico, 2006 104 pp. 13.5 × 21 cm (5.3 × 8.3 in) Collection: Dos en Fondo. Subject: Politics ISBN 9681681061

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his book is the result of three dialogues between two accomplished participants on various aspects of Mexican politics. Issues including development in Mexico and the world, democracy, the exercise of power, and the growing influence of political players such as the media are woven into an entertaining, thoughtprovoking series of dialogues. The value of this book stems from the different points of view from which these two analysts view the same phenomena; often their approaches do not coincide.

Rossana Fuentes-Berain studied the history of cinema and aesthetics at the Sorbonne in Paris, and earned an undergraduate degree in mass communication at Metropolitan Autonomous University in Mexico, and a doctorate in a joint program between the Universidad de Occidente, the Universidad de Navarra, and the Universidad Iberoamericana. She writes for El Universal. Gerardo Laveaga obtained his law degree at the Escuela Libre de Derecho, and a master’s degree in law at the Universidad Iberoamericana, and continued his graduate studies at the University of London. He writes for Reforma, El Financiero and Siempre!

1st ed., fce Mexico, 2006 401 pp. 13.5 × 21 cm (5.3 × 8.3 in) Collection: Política y derecho. Subject: Politics ISBN 9681680812

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n this book, the contributors analyze the interaction between changes in Mexico and recent changes in the international order. The book begins with a description of the current global order and Mexico’s relations with other countries, and concludes with an account of how changes in international relations have lagged behind the rapid changes taking place in the world. The authors combine an interesting mix of skills and experience in academia, diplomacy and the public sector. This project was produced by Grupo Coppan, a Mexican consulting firm concerned with debate and policy formulation on issues central to Mexico’s interests.

Luis Herrera-Lasso has a bachelor’s degree in international relations from El Colegio de México and a master’s degree in international politics from the University of London. He has been a professor at the Matías Romero Institute of Diplomatic Studies, the National Defense College, the Universidad Iberoamericana and the Universidad de las Américas. He was consul-general for Mexico in San Diego. He is currently the ceo of Grupo Coppan, international affairs consultant to the director of cisen (Center for Research on National Security) and a member of the Mexican Council of International Affairs. This book presents a careful, multi-faceted analysis of Mexico’s status in regard to globalization. A valuable interdisciplinary study of Mexican foreign policy.

Readers will learn the points of view of two expert political analysts on current Mexican and international issues. A friendly but frank dialogue between the two participants provides an unbiased look at some of the most pressing issues of contemporary society.

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F O N DO DE C ULTURA ECO N Ó MI C A

Al margen de la agenda. Noticias, discriminación y exclusión

[Mysticism, Rhetoric and Politics]

[Outside the Agenda: News, Discrimination and Exclusion]

Ernesto Laclau 1st ed., fce Argentina, 2002 128 pp. 10.5 × 17 cm (4 × 6.8 in) Collection: Colección Popular. Subjects: Politics, Government, Theory and History, Political theory ISBN 9505574916

Hugo Muleiro 1st ed., fce Argentina, 2006 132 pp. 10.5 × 17 cm (4 × 6.8 in) Collection: Colección Popular. Subjects: Communication ISBN 9505576935

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he main issue and prime concern treated by the author in this book is the central role of the significant gaps that exist in the composition of political meaningfulness. His interest in mysticism arises from the fact that a mystical experience attempts to transmit something which is essentially indescribable, and does so by subverting the significance–meaning relationship with logical structures which the author has also identified in the field of politics. These subversive discourse processes can be described in terms of rhetorical dislocations; and rhetoric, the author claims, plays an ever-increasing role in the humanities, while the humanities are inclined to recognize the centrality of discursive processes in the construction of social bonds. This new contribution by one of the most original experts in contemporary political analysis is a theoretical examination of discursive processes and the construction of social bonds.

Ernesto Laclau (Buenos Aires, 1935), one of the great voices in political theory, graduated from the University of Buenos Aires with a degree in history. In 1969, the British historian Eric Hobsbawm invited him to Oxford. With his theory of hegemony, Laclau has created an extremely original, difficult to categorize political analysis which underlines the discursive aspect of social phenomena.

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ow is the news agenda set? Who is included, and how are they referred to? What place are they given in the media? What sources are used? Al margen de la agenda shows that value judgments and opinions are involved in the choice of news for publication. When journalism judges that freedom of expression is a supreme good, information becomes the private property of the media. When information is considered a social good that belongs to the community, the picture is quite different. The author applies these conceptual frameworks to the handling of political and economic news, particularly news about occupations of public property meant to press the authorities. The book also treats less frequently discussed aspects of the news; childhood, adolescence and youth, and women. The analysis in this book shows how the way the news are put together and broadcast helps to reinforce practices and policies of discrimination and exclusion. Hugo Muleiro (San Fernando, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina, 1955) is a journalist, and chief editor at the ANSA news agency. He specializes in issues dealing with childhood and adolescence. In summary, a valuable book (…) that reminds us that we should be aware not only of the content, but also the method of delivering the news, as well as what is not said but perhaps should be.

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35

POLITICS

Misticismo, retórica y política

POLITICS

El derecho internacional. Vigencia y desafíos en un escenario globalizado

La democracia constitucional. Una radiografía teórica

[International Law: Validity and Challenges in a Globalized World]

[Constitutional Democracy: A Theoretical Survey] Pedro Salazar Ugarte

Mónica Pinto 1st ed., fce Argentina, 2004 170 pp. 10.5 × 17 cm (4 × 6.8 in) Collection: Colección Popular. Subjects: Law, International Law, Comparative Law ISBN 9505576226

1st ed., fce Mexico, 2006 1287 pp 13.5 × 21 cm (5.3 × 8.3 in) Collection: Política y derecho. Subject: Politics, Democracy ISBN 968167023X

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he armed conflict in Iraq has thrown international law into question more harshly than has any other event. The decision taken by a number of powerful countries headed by the United States to invade Iraq without UN Security Council authorization and in opposition to the opinion of millions around the world would seem to question the validity of international law. Nevertheless, in spite of the world’s outrage, this is not the purpose of international law, nor even of the United Nations. The author claims that international law is the inevitable consequence of governments coexisting in an international environment. Notwithstanding the many possible bases for its validity, she considers the theoretical character of the problem, which arises from the fact that the countries of the world have never questioned the validity of international law. The author suggests that international law, like all bodies of legal norms that claim legal validity, must take into account the reality to which it applies. International law has different subjects—states, organizations and individuals—all of which benefit from the existence of a predictable regulatory order.

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his book studies the elements that have shaped our model of contemporary constitutional democracy. The author begins by independently analysing constitutional and democratic systems, and then shows their points of contact, and indicates the location of cracks that cause friction and tension in the theoretical and practical union between the systems. Pedro Salazar Ugarte (Mexico, 1971) has a doctorate in political philosophy from the University of Turin and is a fulltime researcher at the Institute of Legal Research at the University of Mexico. He was the coauthor, together with Ricardo Becerra and José Woldenberg, of La reforma electoral de 1996, published in 1997 by the fce, and La mecánica del cambio político en México. Elecciones, partidos y reformas (2005). The author presents the risks to constitutionalism entailed by an excess of democracy, and warns of the danger to the democratic system represented by an aristocratic government of magistrates—a dilemma which should engage the attention of Latin American experts.

Mónica Pinto (Buenos Aires, 1952) is a full professor holding the Chair of Human Rights and Guarantees in the Law and Social Science Faculty at the University of Buenos Aires, and a member of the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights.

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F O N DO DE C ULTURA ECO N Ó MI C A

Fenómenos de transporte en semiconductores

[The Stupidity of Perfection. Looking at Politics]

[Transport Phenomena in Semiconductors]

Jesús Silva-Herzog Márquez

Yuri Gurevich and Felipe Pérez

1st ed., fce Mexico, 2006 187 pp. 13.5 × 21 cm (5.3 × 8.3 in) Collection: Política y Derecho. Subject: Politics ISBN 9681677951

1st ed., fce Mexico, 2007 299 pp. 16.5 × 23 cm (6.5 × 9 in) Collection: Ciencia y Tecnología. Subject: Science and technology ISBN 9681680642

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he Stupidity of Perfection is a colourful sequence of portraits. The author sketches precise profiles of five men who meditated deeply—and from very different angles and interests—on the nature of power, time, freedom, law, etc. Carl Schmitt, an anti-liberal attorney who ends up embracing the cause of illegality; Michael Oakeshott, a conservative adventurer who regards experience as the primary source of political wisdom; Norberto Bobbio, a disappointed socialist who defends a civilization deeply rooted on legal institutions; Isaiah Berlin, an ideological biographer who interprets politics as constantly having to choose the lesser evil, and Octavio Paz, a poet who sang the brotherhood of man and found in history both our curse and our hope. Silva-Herzog Márquez’s essays represent different approaches to the twentieth century derived from a discerning thoughtfulness. In the profiles of these outstanding intellects one can find the hopes and frustrations of power, as well as its occasional horrors and moderations. These are five different keys to contemporary political thought. Although these men never interacted, their biographies show one common notion: politics ‘will always bear the burdensome marks of force, mischance and conflict, the stubborn spoilsports of perfection.’

Jesús Silva-Herzog Márquez is a political analyst and observer living in Mexico City. He studied law at the University of Mexico and obtained his masters degree in political science from Columbia University. He is the author of El antiguo régimen y la transición en México, and Andar y ver. He is also a professor at the Technological Autonomous Institute of Mexico (itam).

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emiconductor materials have an ever-increasing number of applications in technology. They differ from all other groups of solids mainly by their ability to substantially change their properties when perturbed by a variety of external factors. This book will be useful to graduate students of solid state physics at the master’s and doctorate levels, students studying electronics, researchers and engineers in the areas of semiconductor physics, semiconductor electronic devices, semiconductor materials and microelectronics, and experts in thin film technology and physics. Yuri Gurevich is a researcher in the Department of Physics at cinvestav (the Mexican Polytechnical University Center for Research and Advanced Study). He has a master’s degree in physics from the Karkhiv State University in what was then the USSR. He earned a Ph.D. from the Semiconductor Institute at the USSR Academy of Science in Leningrad and a Doctor of Science degree from the Institute of Radiotechnology and Electronics at the USSR Academy of Science in Moscow. Felipe Pérez completed his graduate studies at the Karkhiv State University in what was then the USSR, and M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in physics and mathematics. He has been a research professor at the Physics Institute at the Universidad Autónoma de Puebla since 1990. There is a vast literature on transport phenomena but the majority of textbooks in the area are written in Russian. There are also some textbooks in English, but they generally describe only specific aspects of these phenomena.

Jesús Silva-Herzog Márquez is one of the foremost representatives of contemporary Mexican prose writing. The arguments of this book shed some light on universal and fundamental topics of political thought. w w w. fo n do decu l tu raeco n o mi c a. com

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37

SCIENCE

La idiotez de lo perfecto. Miradas a la política

SCIENCE

La vida en los desiertos mexicanos

101 hierbas medicinales

[Life in Mexican Deserts]

[101 Medicinal Herbs]

Héctor M. Hernández Macías

Juan Francisco Jaramillo Illustrated by Carlos Mario Orozco

1st ed., fce Mexico, 2006 192 pp. 13.5 × 21 cm (5.3 × 8.3 in) Collection: La Ciencia para Todos. Subject: Plant Biodiversity ISBN 9681680367

1st ed., Ediciones Martínez Roca, Colombia, 1997 2nd ed., fce Colombia, 2005 264 pp. 15.5 × 23 cm (6 × 9 in) Collection: Ciencia y Tecnología. Subject: Chinese medicine ISBN 9583801100

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his book discusses historical, demographic, biological and climatic aspects of the Sonora and Chihuahua deserts. It considers its geologic formation and locates the first human dwellers before studying in detail the contemporary fauna and flora of the habitat. It also discusses the problem of illegal commerce of cacti and animals, and how it affects the fragile biodiversity of these ecosystems.

Héctor M. Hernández Macías (b. San Luis Potosí, 1954) is fulltime researcher for the Institute of Biology at the University of Mexico, and president of the Group of Specialists on Cactaceae and Succulent Plants at the Commission for the Survival of Species of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (uicn). His line of research includes special patterns of plant distribution, conservation of Cactaceae in the Chihuahua Desert, and the phylogeny of the different genera of Mexican Cactaceae. At fce he has published with other authors the collective book Enfoques contemporáneos para el estudio de la biodiversidad (2001). The author presents comprehensive information through tables and glossaries so as to help the reader have access to more difficult data. The book includes a full list of all the plants and animals adapted to this environment with its common and scientific names. It also includes many, well printed photographs.

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his book clearly and accurately describes the medical properties of 101 common herbs classified by their use in traditional Chinese medicine. Each plant is illustrated by an ink drawing in eighteenth-century style. The common name, pharmaceutical name and botanical name are given, and the description identifies the part of the plant employed for medicinal use. The nature of each herb is described; its flavor, temperature and moisture characteristics, its chemical components and its degree of toxicity. The effects of the plant on the human body are summarized and classified. The dose, contraindications, warnings and proper preparation are given. The book also includes a glossary of medical terms and two indexes, one organized by organs and syndromes of traditional Chinese medicine, the other an alphabetical index of disorders and the effects of the plants. Juan Francisco Jaramillo is a Colombian physician who has been practicing Chinese traditional medicine for over thirty years. He wrote the Spanish versions of the China Academy of Traditional Medicine’s Fundamentos de medicina tradicional china and Compendio de acupuntura china. He edited the first T’ai chi chu’an manual in Spanish and also researches indigenous medicine and the use of native medicinal plants.

101 hierbas medicinales is a manual of herbal treatments as easy to use for the general public as it is for experts. The author is a recognized expert in traditional Chinese medicine. The text is complemented by attractive, informative illustrations.

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F O N DO DE C ULTURA ECO N Ó MI C A

La construcción de la bioética. Textos de bioética, vol. i

[Cysticercosis: A Guide for Health Professionals]

[The Construction of Bioethics. Bioethics Texts, vol. I]

Carlos Larralde and Aline S. de Aluja

Rubén Lisker and Ruy Pérez Tamayo

1st ed., fce Mexico, 2006 252 pp. 16.5 × 23 cm (6.5 × 9 in) Collection: Biblioteca de la Salud. Subject: Health ISBN 968168138X

1st ed., fce Mexico, 2007 223 pp. 16.5 × 23 cm (6.5 × 9 in) Collection: Ciencia, Tecnología y Sociedad. Subject: Bioethics ISBN 9789681683917

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his is the first volume of a series planned by the Institute of Bioethics in which scientists, legislators, and humanists will explore a variety of questions related to bioethics. The present book addresses the question of genetic counseling and prenatal diagnosis, abortion, cloning, stem cells, organ transplants, medical research on humans, euthanasia, neuroethics, and eugenics.

C

ysticercosis is an infection caused by larvae of the pork tapeworm Taenia solium. Both humans (the primary host) and pigs (intermediate host) can become infected. It was nearly eliminated in Western Europe after a long struggle during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but continues to linger in areas plagued by persistent poverty, population growth, migration, and careless attitudes on personal and community health where pigs are raised in unsanitary conditions. This book will be useful for health institutions and health professionals, students, researchers, and any reader interested in the topic. Carlos Larralde received his medical degree from the University of Mexico Faculty of Medicine in 1964, a diplomado certificate from the Mexican Council of Anatomopathologists in 1968 and a Ph.D. from the University of Washington in 1972. He is a senior researcher at the University of Mexico Biomedical Research Institute.

Rubén Lisker studied at the University of Mexico School of Medicine. He has published more than 300 journal articles, four books and 43 chapters in books. He is a researcher emeritus of the National System of Researchers, professor emeritus of the University of Mexico and Doctor Honoris Causa of the Universidad Autónoma de Puebla. He was awarded the Mexican National Award for Sciences and Arts in 2003 and is currently Director of Research at the Salvador Subirán National Institute of Medical Science and Nutrition. Ruy Pérez Tamayo studied at the University of Mexico School of Medicine, specializing in pathology. He has been a professor of pathology for more than 50 years. He is currently a professor emeritus at the University of Mexico, and has received the Mexican National Science Award, the Luis Elizondo Award, the Miguel Otero Award, the Aida Weiss Award and the Rohrer Award, among others. He is Doctor Honoris Causa of the Autonomous Universities of Yucatan, Colima and Puebla.

Aline S. de Aluja graduated from the University of Mexico with a veterinary degree. She has made academic visits to veterinary schools in Zurich and Berne, Switzerland; the Royal Veterinary College of London; and the University of Turin in Italy. She obtained a M.Sc. from the University of Pennsylvania. This book contains contributions by researchers specializing in cysticercosis diagnostic and treatment procedures, risk factors, and the complex socio-biological network involved in transmission of the disease.

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39

SCIENCE

Cisticercosis. Guía para profesionales de la salud

SCIENCE

Los alimentos mágicos de las culturas indígenas mesoamericanas

Introducción a la mecánica cuántica

[Introduction to Quantum Mechanics]

[Magic Food in Mesoamerican Native Cultures]

Luis de la Peña Octavio Paredes, Fidel Guevara and Luis Arturo Bello

1st ed., fce Mexico, 2006 992 pp. 21 × 28 cm (8.3 × 11 in) Collection: Ediciones Científicas Universitarias. Subject: Quantum Mechanics ISBN 9681636481

1st ed., fce Mexico, 2006 208 pp. 13.5 × 21 cm (5.3 × 8.3 in) Collection: La Ciencia para Todos. Subject: Mesoamerican Cultures ISBN 9681675673

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his is a textbook for science undergraduate and graduate students. It was first published in 1979. This third updated edition covers all new developments in the subject up to the beginnings of the new century. The book has kept its didactic approach with abundant exercises and examples, and with all the physical and mathematical tables related to the subject.

T

his book studies the food products and beverages that were at the basis of the development and flourishing of the great Mesoamerican civilizations, and which would later become a source of food and a cultural legacy for the rest of the planet.

Luis de la Peña is a researcher at the Institute of Physics and a professor from the Faculty of Sciences at the University of Mexico. He obtained his Ph.D. from the State University of Moscow graduating with honours under the tutoring of A. Sokolov. He has received several national prizes and awards. He is a member of the Science Academy of Developing Countries since 1999. He is a specialist in theoretical physics and quantum mechanics. He is famous for his efforts to make science readily intelligible for all people, and as a humanist preoccupied with the social effects of the application of sciences.

Octavio Paredes is a Ph.D. graduate from the Department of Plant Science at the University of Manitoba in Canada. He has been on post-doctoral sojourns and sabbatical research projects in the USA, France, England, and Canada. His line of research is molecular biotechnology for the nutraceutic improvement of plants of Mesoamerican origin. He is a professor and researcher at the Centre for Research and Advanced Studies (cinvestav) of the National Polytechnic Institute. Fidel Guevara obtained his Ph.D. from the Faculty of Chemistry at the Autonomous University of Querétaro. His line of research is food biotechnology; he is a professor and researcher at the Autonomous University of Aguascalientes. Luis Arturo Bello is a Ph.D. graduate from the Department of Biotechnology and Biochemistry at the cinvestav; his line of research is the rational use of macromolecules of alimentary importance; he is a professor and researcher at the Centre for the Development of Biotic Products of the National Polytechnic Institute in Yautepec, Morelos.

It is a complete and useful textbook for any course on quantum mechanics. This third edition covers more comprehensively certain important topics—quantum mechanics as probability theory, trajectory integrals, Hillbert space, rotation matrices, and irreducible tensorial operators, among others.

This is a comprehensive and easy-to-read book on food from Mesoamerica, its variety and its nutraceutic properties. This is a book for all readers, written in plain but precise language.

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La tierra tiene fiebre

[The Earth Has a Fever]

[Adventures of a Goblin in the World of Mathematics]

Isaac Schifter and Carmen GonzálezMacías 1st ed., fce Mexico, 2005 168 pp. 13.5 × 21 cm (5.3 × 8.3 in) Collection: La Ciencia para Todos. Subject: Science ISBN 9681677501

Carlos Prieto 1st ed., fce Mexico, 2005 160 pp. 13.5 × 21 cm (5.3 × 8.3 in) Collection: La Ciencia para Todos. Subject: Mathematics ISBN: 9789681675752

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he main character of this book is Sarando, a goblin from the garden who is now trapped in a mysterious world of numbers and geometric forms. He invites the reader to participate in his adventure through the different regions of knowledge that make up this mathematical world. The book presents concepts of great actuality such as the theory of knots or the proof of Fermat’s theorem, but it also examines other traditional concepts such as Plato’s five solid forms or the very history of Fermat’s theorem. The inquisitive Sarando helps the reader get acquainted with the biography of some of the greatest mathematicians who have contributed to the creation of this world.

Carlos Prieto obtained his bachelor and master’s degree from the Science Faculty at the University of Mexico and his Ph.D. from the University of Heidelberg in Germany. He is at present a researcher at the Institute of Mathematics (University of Mexico) and a member of the National System of Researchers. He has specialized in algebraic topology and its applications to non-linear analysis. He has published several articles and books on the subject.

This book explains important mathematical concepts—some readily comprehensible, others requiring more effort from the reader—in a friendly, narrative manner with abundant illustrations so as to render intelligible certain formulae that the layman could find otherwise incomprehensible. The biographies of great mathematicians are cleverly introduced as interesting narrative digressions.

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I

n this book the authors present the history of climate in the planet. They analyze to what an extent climate has changed since the Industrial Revolution, and for this they give important specific data—how much carbon dioxide, methane, and other polluting substances are sent to the atmosphere, what countries pollute the most, how do chlorofluorocarbons affect the ozone layer—as well as other questions still in discussion by scientists. The authors conclude with an explanation as to why it is necessary to develop and apply new technologies that improve the efficient use of natural resources so as to decrease current negative impact.

Isaac Schifter studied chemistry at University of Mexico. He obtained his PhD from Claude Bernard University in Lyon, France. Currently he is a researcher at the National Institute of Petroleum, a public institution dedicated to the production of knowledge about the oil industry and petrochemistry. He is specialized in the techniques of fuel transformation. Carmen González-Macías studied biology at the Metropolitan Autonomous University and obtained her masters degree from the Faculty of Science at the University of Mexico. She is a researcher at the National Institute of Petroleum.

This book is an excellent introduction to environmental science. It is based on a completely scientific approach but written in an accessible language for any reader. It will surely become a successful textbook given the abilities of the authors to explain complex topics in an easy and straightforward manner.

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SCIENCE

Aventuras de un duende en el mundo de las matemáticas

SCIENCE

La ciencia en el siglo XIX

El espacio biográfico. Dilemas de la subjetividad contemporánea

[Science in the Nineteenth Century]

[Biography: Contemporary Dilemmas in Subjectivity]

Elías Trabulse Leonor Arfuch

2nd ed., fce Mexico, 2006 299 pp. 11 × 17 cm (4.3 × 6.7 in) Collection: Biblioteca Universitaria de Bolsillo. Subject: Science, History ISBN 9681681428

1st ed., fce Argentina, 2002 272 pp. 15.5 × 23 cm (6 × 9 in) Collection: Sociología. Subjects: Sociology, Cultural studies, Language, Literary theory, Literary studies ISBN 9505575041

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wo centuries on, the burst of scientific discoveries in the nineteenth century is still astonishing. The scientific advances of the period still have an important impact today; without them, daily life in the twenty-first century as we know it would be unthinkable.

Elías Trabulse was born in 1942 in Mexico City. He studied chemistry at the University of Mexico and received a scholarship from the university’s Institute of Chemistry where he studied chemical kinetics. In 1965 he received the international award of the American Society for Testing and Materials for his work in the field. In 1968 he entered El Colegio de México, where he earned a doctorate in History. He has been a research professor at the Centro de Estudios Históricos (Center for History Studies) and a professor at the University of Mexico, the Universidad Iberoamericana and the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México.

Noted Mexican historian Elías Trabulse introduces texts by Darwin, Pasteur, Laplace, Maxwell and other great scientists.

T

he original notion of ‘biography’ bears witness to the multiplicity and hybridization of textualities that characterize contemporary culture, in which one’s own experience is given precedence. In this book the author includes both time-honored genres and burgeoning new forms. Biography does not, however, merely feed narcissistic acclaim or intrusions on privacy. It operates in the realm of speculative identification; of the narrative and ethical organization of life itself as it invents the habits, feelings, and practices that constitute the social order. It is precisely this increase in the scope of biography that makes it into a symptom, a phenomenon in which the reconfiguration of contemporary subjectivity can be read. Autobiography is analyzed here as the intersection between the public and the private, where narratives of identity are constructed. Leonor Arfuch (Buenos Aires, 1945), received a doctorate in literature from the University of Buenos Aires, where she is a researcher and instructor. She has taught in the Ph.D. program at the Department of Research in Education of the cinvestav (Advanced Research and Study Center) in Mexico. Dr. Arfuch draws upon a vast library covering historical variables in the field of sociology, political philosophy, theory, and literary criticism.

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[Post-Organic Man]

[Bread and Affection: Family Transitions]

Paula Sibilia 1st ed., fce Argentina, 2005 272 pp. 10.5 × 17 cm (4 × 6.8 in) Collection: Colección Popular. Subjects: Sociology, Science and technology, Politics, Government, Globalization ISBN 9505571410

Elizabeth Jelin 1st ed., fce Argentina, 1998 140 pp. 11 × 17 cm (4.3 × 6.8 in) Collection: Colección Popular. Subjects: Sociology, Cultural studies, Family and gender studies ISBN 9505572549

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F

amily is a social institution whose universality derives from certain functions and tasks that must be performed in every society. There are many variations as to how and by whom they are carried out, what the forms of organization and who the social agents are, and the family environments and forms that are present. These variations are neither random nor entirely due to ‘cultural’ differences. Working from a basis of democratic, egalitarian principles, the author shows what processes and trends promote and hinder the democratization of society, both within families and in a sociopolitical sense. She does so by deconstructing and contextualizing the place of affection in the family and observing the composition of what is public and what is private; the fight for gender equality; different types of families; the relationship between poverty and the constitution of domestic groupings; reproductive rights; family violence and the consequences of aging which characterize our era. This book, rather than speaking of families in crisis, makes reference to a growing variety of types of families and ways of living together; an extension of the ‘right to have rights.’

Elizabeth Jelin graduated from the University of Buenos Aires with a degree in sociology and obtained a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Texas at Austin. She is a conicet (Argentinean Science and Technology Research Council) researcher and a researcher at the University of Buenos Aires Faculty of Social Science.

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ndustrial capitalism developed techniques for efficiently molding useful bodies and docile subjectivities. In today’s information society, telecommunications and biotechnology attempt to achieve much more radical transformations; to eliminate distance, disease, aging, or even death. In such a world the human body would be obsolete. The aim of the new technosciences is to create hybrids between non-organic materials and manipulated genes for the Faustian purpose of overcoming their natural limitations. El hombre postorgánico details how the interweaving of biology and computer technology simplifies human complexity while at the same time forming the basis for new mechanisms of post-industrial capitalist control. In this book, Paula Sibilia has thoroughly analyzed the philosophical foundations of contemporary technological science. She interprets its political, social, and ethical aspects, claiming that the organic will always persist and resist technology.

Paula Sibilia (Buenos Aires, 1967) is a professor of cultural studies and media at the Universidad Federal Fluminense (uff) in Rio de Janeiro, and is conducting post-doctoral research at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin. She obtained degrees in communication and anthropology at the University of Buenos Aires, and has a master’s degree in communication from the uff and doctorates in collective health from the State University of Rio de Janeiro and in communication and culture from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

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SOCIOLOGY

El hombre postorgánico

Pan y afectos. La transformación de la familia

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

Las aventuras de Max y su ojo submarino

[The Adventures of Max and his Underwater Eye] Text: Luigi Amara Illustrated by: Jonathan Farr 1st ed., Fce Mexico, 2007 64 pp. 18 × 24 cm (7 × 9.5 in) Picture book ISBN 9789681684501

New!

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fter Max loses his right eye in accident, he finds he can see things from two different points of view at the same time. With his wandering eye, the imaginary one,Max sees his school, the night, and his family in a new way. When his eye turns into a mutant pearl and describes what it sees from the ocean bed, we see the underwater world from a dazzling new perspective. This ingenious narrative poem expresses an instinctive sense of the fabulous and extraordinary humor as it demythologizes childhood. Luigi Amara was born in Mexico City in 1971. He is a poet and essayist, and has published several books of poems: El decir de la mancha, El cazador de grietas, Pasmo y Envés. He has also written a book of essays El peatón inmóvil. He was awarded the 1998 Elías Nandino Young Poets Award and has received grants from the Mexican Institute of Fine Arts and the National Foundation for Culture and the Arts (FONCA). He is also a member of the National Artists Registry. Las aventuras de Max y su ojo submarino is his first book of poems for children. Jonathan Farr was born in Oxford in 1973. He studied sculpture at the Slade School of Fine Art in London. His work has been exhibited in Mexico and Europe. He paints murals and creates stained glass windows for churches, and has illustrated books for various publishers. He is the illustrator of ¿Para qué usas la lengua? and Ripios y adivinanzas del mar, also published by fce. Winner of the 2006 Hispanic American Poetry for Children Award. For children 6 and older.

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CHILDREN’S BOOKS

Hago de voz un cuerpo

[Voices from the Body] Anthology: María Baranda Illustrated by: Gabriel Pacheco 1st ed., Fce Mexico, 2007 156 pp. 17 × 24 cm (approx. 6.7 × 9.5 in) Picture book ISBN 9789681684006

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his wonderful picture book is all about the body: hands, hair, nails, arms, the neck and more. Fifteen outstanding Mexican poets have used their words to create an enchanting series of metaphors of the body.

María Baranda is one of the most important poets of her generation. In 1995 she was awarded the Efraín Huerta National Poetry Award for her book Los memoriosos, the Villa de Madrid International Poetry Award in 1998 for Moradas imposibles and the Aguascalientes National Poetry Award for her book Dylan y las ballenas in 2002. The fce published her book Atlántica y el rústico in their Mexican Literature collection in 2002. Gabriel Pacheco was born in Mexico City in 1973. He studied stage and set design at the National Institute of Fine Arts. He won the Tenth Città de Chioggia International Illustration Competition in Venice in 2004, the first place in the Fourteenth Catalogue of Children’s and Young Peoples’ Book Illustrators and the 2004 International Picture Book Award. He has participated in exhibits in Mexico and Italy, and was included in the 2007 catalogue of the Bologna Illustrators Exhibition. He has illustrated books published by leading Spanish and Italian publishing houses. For children 7 and older.

New!

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45

CHILDREN’S BOOKS ART

Ramona la mona

Fernanda y los mundos secretos

[Nicole the mole]

[Fernanda and the Secret Worlds]

Written and illustrated by Aitana Carrasco

Ricardo Chávez Castañeda

1st ed., Fce Mexico, 2006 40 pp. 21 x 28 cm (8.3 x 11 in) Picture book ISBN 968168026X

1st ed., Fce Mexico, 2005 136 pp. 14 × 23 cm (5.5 × 9 in) Fiction ISBN 9681670558

B

runo lives with his father, mother, grandparents, and five goldfish. Upon the arrival of Fola, a red cat, the child experiences the loss of his fish and his grandfather. Bruno is not willing to accept Mona, his brand new sister until one day things change for good. Aitana Carrasco was born in Valencia. She has a B.A. in Fine Arts and is a member of the Valencia Association of Professional Illustrators (apiv). In 1995 Carrasco was presented a prize at the XI ‘El Gos i la Tortuga’ Award of Editorial 3i4. In 1994-1995 the I.B. ‘A.J. Cavanilles’ awarded her at several artistic and literary contests (in the fields of etching, poetry, and fiction). In 1998 Carrasco was a finalist in the annual contest of Poetry at the Polytechnic University of Valencia. A story about loss, time and changes, jealousy, the lies of adults, the discovery of the world and the surprises that life keeps for a kid A beautiful book about love and fraternity, and the importance of growing up.

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en stories about different ways to see, smell, feel and experience the world. One child can not go out in the sun, another carries an ocean within, another lost a leg, another is haunted by a ghost, another sees only half of everything. This series of stories promote tolerance by helping the reader to understand others who are different. Ricardo Chávez Castañeda was born in Mexico City in 1961. He writes novels and short stories. He has won the 1994 Latin American Story Award, the 1987 Borges Short Story Award, the 1994 Mexican National Novel Award, the 1993 and 1994 Mexican National Young People’s Novel Awards, the 1993 Mexican National Children’s Story Award and the 1991 National Short Story Award. Along with other writers including Jorge Volpi, Ignacio Padilla, Vicente Rasti, he is part of the Crack Movement, a Mexican literary movement of the mid-1990s. For children 14 and older.

Winner of the IX Picture Book Award A la Orilla del Viento (Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2005). For children 4 and older. Catalan edition available.

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Ecos del desierto

[Among Books]

[Echoes of the Desert]

Teresa Colomer

Text: Silvia Dubovoy Illustrated by: René Almanza

1st ed., Fce Mexico, 2005 280 pp. 13.5 × 21 cm (5.3 × 8.3 in) Non Fiction ISBN 9681671775

1st ed., Fce Mexico, 2007 64 pp. 15 × 19 cm (6 × 7.5 in) Fiction ISBN 9789681683962

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n this book, the author proposes a method based on theory and practical experience for promoting literary education in the schools. The first section of the book analyzes the function of the school, reading and books involved in the process of literary education. The second part proposes an active relationship between these three elements to promote reading, both collective and individual, in the classroom. Teresa Colomer is a Spanish specialist in children’s and young people’s literature. She has presented lectures in numerous countries on active promotion of reading comprehension. She is currently the director of the Children’s Literature Research Network in Catalonian universities and organizes a master’s program in books and literature for children and young people together with the Banco del Libro in Venezuela and the Germán Sánchez Ruipérez Foundation. Portuguese rights sold.

T

eenage Miguel decides to leave his home village to brave the trip across the border in search of a better future. Crossing the border is difficult, but so is his search for identity on the other side. Miguel’s love of music takes him on a different path than that of most migrants. This book tells a story about a difficult journey and the struggle to make a life in a new country. Silvia Dubovoy has long been involved in research on reading, literature and communication. She began to write her own stories when her grandchildren were born, and her books for children and young people have been published by important Mexican publishers. René Almanza was born in Monterrey, Nuevo León in 1979. He studied visual arts, and designes signs, comics and advertising as well as illustrating children’s books. His graphic and artistic work has been exhibited in solo and group expositions. He currently lives in Oaxaca. For children 9 and older.

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CHILDREN’S BOOKS

Andar entre libros

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

¿Quién pasó por aquí?

[Who’s been here?] Text: Martha Duhne Illustrated by: Manuel Monroy 1st ed., Fce Mexico, 2006 32 pp. 18 × 18 cm (7 × 7 in) Picture book ISBN 9681680618

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n entertaining way to learn about animals from their tracks, with surprises hidden under flaps and an appealing story for each animal. Ojitos Pajaritos [Birdie Eyes] is a collection of picture books that introduce children to the pleasure of discovery. The authors of these books are science writers, and the books are aimed at children aged three to five who are starting to discover the world around them. Martha Duhne has been a producer and science writer for television, radio and magazines for more than 20 years. She is the coauthor of Animales asombrosos. She is the information manager of ¿Cómo ves?, a science magazine for young people published by the University of Mexico. The magazine won the 2002-2003 Latin American Award for Science and Technology Writing. Manuel Monroy studied graphic communication design. In addition to teaching, he designs posters and other art projects. He has been an illustrator since 1994, and has exhibited in solo and joint exhibitions. He has received numerous awards for his work, including the 1995 Quórom Award and the 2001 Noma Concours Award in Japan. He has illustrated several fce books, including Hombre de mar, the Yoyo series, Chanyelín, and Rabieta Trebejos. For children 3 and older.

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F O N DO DE C ULTURA ECO N Ó MI C A

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

Gallego. A la orilla del mar

[Gallego by the Sea Shore] Text: Juan Farias Illustrated by: Xosé Cobas 1st ed., Fce Mexico, 2006 48 pp. 25 × 27 cm (9.7 × 10.7 in) Picture book ISBN 9681682777

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e knew that at ninety years of age, little was left for him to do. But he had his memories: some comforted him, others saddened him as they passed in measured cadence like music. This is the story of Gallego’s remarkable life. It tells of the changes in his village over the years and his relationships with those close to him. His story is one of everyday happenings. In a manner suitable for children it tells of the affection, loyalty, love, innocence, injustice and death that life measures out. A story that children and grandparents can read together to inspire memories.

Juan Farias is the most original, evocative Spanish author writing for children today. With more than fifty books already published, he has created a compact literary universe. He began writing for adults, and was a Nadal Award finalist in 1965 for his non-fiction book Los buscadores de agua. Some time later, he changed course and began writing books for children and young people, which now make up the bulk of his work. These books have won him numerous awards; the 1980 National Children’s Literature Award of Spain for Algunos niños, tres perros y más cosas, the White Raven Award in Munich in 1982, 1984, 1986 and 1992, and the 2005 Ediciones SM Iberoamerican Award for Children’s and Young People’s Literature. He has also twice represented Spain at the International Hans Christian Anderson Award for Children’s Literature, in 2002 and 2004. Xosé Cobas was born in Logrosa-Negriera in La Coruña, Spain. He works in three areas of art; painting, illustration and graphic design. His first solo exhibition as a painter was in La Coruña in 1997, and was followed by other exhibitions in Galicia and further abroad. He has illustrated books of poems, children’s and young people’s literature, essays, and fiction, and has also contributed to numerous periodicals including La Voz de Galicia, which he has illustrated since 1981. For children 8 and older. Galician rights sold. w w w. fo n do decu l tu raeco n o mi c a. com

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CHILDREN’S BOOKS

Cultura escrita y educación

Tigres de la otra noche

[Written Culture and Education]

[Tigers of the Other Night]

Emilia Ferreiro

Illustrated by: Alejandro Magallanes

Text: María García Esperón

1st ed., Fce Mexico, 1999 2nd ed., Fce Mexico, 2006 264 pp. 13.5 × 21 cm (5.3 × 8.3 in) Non Fiction ISBN 9681661311

1st ed., Fce Mexico, 2006 40 pp. 18 × 24 cm (7 × 9.5 in) Picture book ISBN 9681682726

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his book deals with the science of writing and social problems in education. It also analyzes problems in schools in poor regions and the use of new technology for teaching reading and writing.

Emilia Ferreiro (Argentina, 1937) received a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Geneva; his thesis advisor was Jean Piaget. He teaches at the Mexican National Polytechnical Institute. He has given courses, lectures, seminars and consultations at universities and ministries of education in Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Venezuela, Italy, France, Spain and Greece.

A

book about the power of imagination and play; about growing and discovering the world, with its dangers and its potential. The poems make multiple references to the tiger as an archetype, and to other authors including Kipling, Borges, Verne and Salgari. María García Esperón is a teacher, science journalist and writer. She has written scripts for the Mexican Radio Institute, articles on painting, dance, music, theater and books for the newspaper El Heraldo de México, and coauthored articles for the periodicals El Perico Consentido and La Ciencia Recreativa. She recently won the 2007 Norma-Fundalectura Award for Children’s and Young Adult Books. Alejandro Magallanes studied graphic design at the ENAP (University of Mexico School of Art). He has illustrated children’s books for Mexican and foreign publishers, and has designed award-winning posters. He has been a member of Alliance Graphique Internationale since 2004. Winner of the 2005 Hispanic American Poetry for Children Award. For children 6 and older.

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[The Worst Woman in the World] Text: Francisco Hinojosa Illustrated by: Rafael Barajas, El Fisgón 2nd ed., Fce Mexico, 1995 48 pp. 15 x 19 cm (6 x 7.5 in) B/W illustrations ISBN 968164705X

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n the north of Turambul lives the worst lady in the world. She punishes her children when they misbehave, but also when they are being good. Everybody in the neighborhood runs away from her. But one day the villagers decide to do something to put an end to her atrocities. A humorous, acid, and cathartic tale on the limits of human behavior and the strength of a community to resist an attempt of an individual to impose herself upon them.

Francisco Hinojosa (Mexico City, 1954) studied literature, and then started writing poetry, short stories, and children’s books. In 1984 he won the IBBY Award for La vieja que comía gente. Hinojosa is the most outstanding author of children’s books in Mexico. Rafael Barajas, El Fisgón is a curator, muralist, painter, researcher, writer, and journalist. He is also one of the bestknown political caricaturists in Mexico. This is one of the biggest bestsellers in the history of children’s books in Mexico. The story is illustrated by Rafael Barajas, El Fisgón, one of the best caricaturists in Mexico. For children 6 and older. Portuguese rights sold.

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CHILDREN’S BOOKS

La peor señora del mundo

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

El nombre del juego es Posada

[Posada is the Name of the Game] Text: Hugo Hiriart Illustrated by: Joel Rendón

1st ed., Fce Mexico, 2005 48 pp. 20 × 27 cm (7.8 × 10.8 in) Non Fiction ISBN 9681673549

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a Catrina is a train ride into the world of José Guadalupe Posada, engraver and commentator on Mexican society in the Revolutionary Era. In this story, disaster and tragedy mingle with human characters like those Posada so often caricaturized; a doctor who turns his daughter’s suitor into a chicken, the handsome son who mistreats his parents, the woman who meets the Devil himself, and more. An ingenious and amusing tale that introduces young readers to the imagination, the wit and the engaging pictures created by one of the greatest Mexican artists, whose portrayal of the spirit of Mexico transcended the country’s borders. The book includes information about the history of engraving in Mexico, the calaveritas and Posada’s games—the coyote, the charro smugglers. Hugo Hiriart is a writer and theater director. He studied philosophy at the University of Mexico and painting at ‘La Esmeralda’ (Mexican National School of Painting, Sculpture and Engraving). He won the Xavier Villaurrutia Award and is a member of the National Artists Registry. Joel Rendón was born in Izúcar de Matamoros in the state of Puebla in 1967. He studied visual arts at the Mexican National School of Art. His work has been exhibited in Mexico, Cuba, Argentina, Spain, North Africa and the United States. In a series of short episodes called ‘Estampa al Minuto’ [Minute Print] produced by Mexico’s Channel 11, he teaches children about the principles and techniques of engraving. For children 8 and older.

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F O N DO DE C ULTURA ECO N Ó MI C A

Secreto de familia

[The Balloon]

[Family Secret]

Written and illustrated by Isol

Written and illustrated by Isol

1st ed., Fce Mexico, 2000 32 pp. 15.5 x 17.5 cm (6.1 x 6.8 in) Picture Book ISBN 9681665732

1st ed., Fce Mexico, 2000 48 pp. 17 x 22 cm (8.6 x 6.7 in) Picture Book ISBN 9681670569

C

amila’s mother shouts so much that she looks like a balloon. But Camila wishes she would actually turn into one. And one day, her wish comes true. Camila begins to see her mother in a new way. This charming story shows how fantasies can take flight, and explores relationships between parents and children.

Isol (b. Buenos Aires, 1972) studied Fine Arts and Mixed Arts. She has worked in the fields of comic, poetry and visual arts. At this moment, she is entirely devoted to media and book illustration (covering from publishing firms, to magazines and newspapers). Very often she is the author of the texts of her books. She has published her work in Spain, Mexico, France and Argentina with great success. She was honored with a Golden Apple at the BIB, and her books are in the White Ravens List with a Special Mention (2002, 2003, and 2004).

T

he girl in this tale has a serious problem: one morning she wakes up earlier than usual and discovers a horrible secret hidden by her mother. This secret makes her, as well as her family, different from everybody else. Isol (b. Buenos Aires, 1972) studied Fine Arts and Mixed Arts. She has worked in the fields of comic, poetry and visual arts. At this moment, she is entirely devoted to media and book illustration (covering from publishing firms, to magazines and newspapers). Very often she is the author of the texts of her books. She has published her work in Spain, Mexico, France and Argentina with great success. She was honored with a Golden Apple at the bib, and her books are in the White Ravens List with a Special Mention (2002, 2003, and 2004). AWARDS Finalist at the Hans Christian Andersen Award 2006 Nomineé for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award 2006 (Sweden) Special Mention in The White Ravens 2004 List for El cuento de Navidad by Auggie Wren (by Paul Auster, Sudamericana, 2003) Golden Apple Prize in the Bienal of Illustration of Bratislava 2003, Slovakia, for the illustrations of the book Tic Tac (by Jorge Luján, Alfaguara, 2003) The White Ravens 2002 List for El globo (FCE publishers, 2003) Illustration Award in the 3rd Press Design International Contest (Porto Alegre, Brazil, 1998) Special Mention in the Contest ‘A la orilla del viento’, 1997 (Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico)

AWARDS Finalist at the Hans Christian Andersen Award 2006 Nomineé for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award 2006 (Sweden) Special Mention in The White Ravens 2004 List for El cuento de Navidad by Auggie Wren (by Paul Auster, Sudamericana, 2003) Golden Apple Prize in the Bienal of Illustration of Bratislava 2003, Slovakia, for the illustrations of the book Tic Tac (by Jorge Luján, Alfaguara, 2003) The White Ravens 2002 List for El globo (FCE publishers, 2003) Illustration Award in the 3rd Press Design International Contest (Porto Alegre, Brazil, 1998) Special Mention in the Contest ‘A la orilla del viento’, 1997 (Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico)

For children 5 and older. For children 5 and older. French rights sold. Korean rights sold.

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CHILDREN’S BOOKS ART

El globo

CHILDREN’S BOOKS ART

Tener un patito es útil

New!

[Ducks are useful] Written and illustrated by Isol 1st ed., Fce Mexico, 2007 32 pp. 15 × 16 cm (6 × 6.3 in) Picture book ISBN 9789681672850

For children 3 and older.

A

child finds a duck useful for swinging, for a hat, and as a nose. A duck finds a child useful for back rubs, as a lookout, and for polishing its bill. This accordion fold book in two colors tells two versions of the same story, depending on which side is read. Isol (b. Buenos Aires, 1972) studied Fine Arts and Mixed Arts. She has worked in the fields of comic, poetry and visual arts. At this moment, she is entirely devoted to media and book illustration (covering from publishing firms, to magazines and newspapers). Very often she is the author of the texts of her books. She has published her work in Spain, Mexico, France and Argentina with great success. She was honored with a Golden Apple at the BIB, and her books are in the White Ravens List with a Special Mention (2002, 2003, and 2004).

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AWARDS Finalist at the Hans Christian Andersen Award 2006 Nomineé for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award 2006 (Sweden) Special Mention in The White Ravens 2004 List for El cuento de Navidad by Auggie Wren (by Paul Auster, Sudamericana, 2003) Golden Apple Prize in the Bienal of Illustration of Bratislava 2003, Slovakia, for the illustrations of the book Tic Tac (by Jorge Luján, Alfaguara, 2003) The White Ravens 2002 List for El globo (FCE publishers, 2003) Illustration Award in the 3rd Press Design International Contest (Porto Alegre, Brazil, 1998) Special Mention in the Contest ‘A la orilla del viento’, 1997 (Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico)

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El vuelo de Eluán

[A Dog’s Life]

[Eluán’s Flight]

Written and illustrated by Isol

León Krauze 1st ed., Fce Mexico, 2005 136 pp. 14 × 23 cm (5.5 × 9 in) Fiction ISBN 9681674618

E

luán is one of the winged ones. His people have to start their flight from a cave in the high mountains beside the Sea of the Dangralos. When Eluán’s cave becomes too small for him, he must make the decision to leave and overcome his fears to launch himself into the void. His flight takes a different path than the others, and he flies into new adventures that expand his horizons.

1st ed., fce México, 1997 32 pp. 21 × 24 cm (8.3 × 9.5 in) Picture book ISBN 9681654234

A

boy and his dog spend so much time together that it is difficult to pry them apart. This book paints a picture of one of the best, most precious relationships in the world—that of a boy and his dog. A story of friendship, loyalty and good times. Author Isol’s humor and unique graphic style combine to make a delightful picture book for beginning readers.

León Krauze was born in Mexico. He has a multidisciplinary interest in international affairs, particularly Mexico’s relations with the United States—the subject of one of his books. He also writes about soccer, the subject of two more books. In addition, he promotes graphic media, publishing projects and video projects through the publisher Editorial Clío. He is also a promising new novelist whose first novel has been published by fce.

Isol (b. Buenos Aires, 1972) studied Fine Arts and Mixed Arts. She has worked in the fields of comic, poetry and visual arts. At this moment, she is entirely devoted to media and book illustration (covering from publishing firms, to magazines and newspapers). Very often she is the author of the texts of her books. She has published her work in Spain, Mexico, France and Argentina with great success. She was honored with a Golden Apple at the BIB, and her books are in the White Ravens List with a Special Mention (2002, 2003, and 2004). For children 14 and older.

AWARDS Finalist at the Hans Christian Andersen Award 2006 Nomineé for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award 2006 (Sweden) Special Mention in The White Ravens 2004 List for El cuento de Navidad by Auggie Wren (by Paul Auster, Sudamericana, 2003) Golden Apple Prize in the Bienal of Illustration of Bratislava 2003, Slovakia, for the illustrations of the book Tic Tac (by Jorge Luján, Alfaguara, 2003) The White Ravens 2002 List for El globo (FCE publishers, 2003) Illustration Award in the 3rd Press Design International Contest (Porto Alegre, Brazil, 1998) Special Mention in the Contest ‘A la orilla del viento’, 1997 (Fondo de Cultura Económica, Mexico) Vida de perros was a finalist in the Sixth A la Orilla del Viento Picture Book Competition For children 4 and older.

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CHILDREN’S BOOKS

Vida de perros

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

Juan Felizario Contento. El rey de los negocios

Yo tengo una casa

[I Have a Home]

[Juan Felizario Contento. The King of the Businesses]

Written and illustrated by Claudia Legnazzi 1st ed., Fce Mexico, 2002 40 pp. 18 × 20 cm (7 × 7.8 in) Picture book ISBN 9681664248

Written and illustrated by Angela Lago 1st ed., Fce Mexico, 2003 32 pp. 23 x 34 cm (9 x 13.3 in) Picture Book ISBN 9681670477

T

his is the story of Juan Felizario Contento who inherited a gold coin so bright that he traded it for a horse. The horse was so fast that he traded it for a donkey… and so on until Juan Felizario ends up with something much lighter. This is an adaptation of the Grimm’s classic ‘Hans in Luck’ in a Brazilian setting.

Angela Lago was born in Belo Horizonte, Brazil in 1945. She writes and illustrates children books. She has exhibited her work and received awards in China, France, Slovakia, Japan and Brazil.

W

hat is a home? With her marvelous pictures, Claudia Legnazzi shows that a home can be high or low, here or there, big or small, but always very special. We see how imagination springs from the home inside us.

Claudia Legnazzi was born in Argentina and illustrates children’s books. Her work has won awards in Mexico and Japan. Some of her illustrations are on display at the Chihiro Museum of Art in Tokyo. For children 4 and older.

Last year, Juan Felizario Contento was selected outstanding picture book from the White Raven list. For children 5 and older. Portuguese rights sold.

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CHILDREN’S BOOKS

El arca

[The Ark] Text: Jorge Luján Illustrated by: Manuel Marín Forthcomming in Autumn, 2007 24 pp. 21 x 21 cm (8.2 x 8.2 in) Picture book ISBN 9789681677060

T

he Ark is an original animal alphabet written in verse. As it sails through lively diluvial coves, the blessed ark shows us a myriad of colorful animals, which superimpose one another in each illustration just as every illustration superimposes on the next one, creating a Chinese-box effect.

Jorge Luján was born in Córdoba, Argentina. Since 1978, the year he arrived in Mexico, Luján has devoted himself to organizing literary workshops and singing to children. In 1995 he was awarded the Children’s Poetry Prize of the Argentinean Association for Children’s Literature. He has published more than 10 books with different publishing houses in Latin America. Manuel Marín is a painter, sculptor, sketcher, and teacher. He has participated in more than 80 exhibitions in Mexico and other countries. A beautiful art object, an artifact toy, based on Noah’s Ark story. A perfect book for reading aloud. For children 4 and older. French rights sold.

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CHILDREN’S BOOKS

De cómo nació la memoria de El Bosque

[How the Memory of the Forest Was Born] Written and illustrated by Rocío Martínez 1st ed., Fce Mexico, 2007 32 pp. 21 × 27 cm (8.3 × 10.8 in) Picture book ISBN 9789681684518

New!

T

his is a story reminiscent of classic tales. It tells the life story of a simple wooden table built by a woodcutter and how it moved from house to house and master to master. At the same time, the story speaks of the passage of time, love, life, death, gratitude, and human potential. The illustrations weave a rich tapestry of colors and shapes that are based on the text but at the same time add depth to the story with their movement and colors, with amusing details for readers to discover.

Rocío Martínez was born in Madrid. She studied fine arts, specializing in print-making. Since 1990, she has focused on illustrating books for children and young people. Her work has been shown at numerous solo and group exhibitions, and she has earned the 1995 OEPLI-Ministry of Culture Illustration Award for the Children’s Book Poster of the Week, the Ministry of Culture Award for the best book published in 1995, the 1999 Lazarillo Illustration Award for Miguel y las palampatas, and the 2001 Lazarillo Illustration Award for La gallina Catalina. Her books have been published in Spain and Latin America. Winner of the 2006 A la Orilla del Viento Picture Book Competition. For children 7 and older.

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Animalario universal del profesor Revillod Almanaque ilustrado de la fauna mundial

[Tantrum Trinkets]

[Universal Zoology]

Written and illustrated by Manuel Monroy

Text: Miguel Murugarren Illustrated by: Javier Sáez

1st ed., Fce Mexico, 1999 26 pp. 20.5 x 20.5 cm (8 x 8 in) Picture Book ISBN 9681660803

1st ed., Fce Mexico, 2004 40 pp. 18 x 14 cm (7.3 x 5.3 in) Picture Book ISBN 9681670485

For children 5 and older.

R

abieta’s grandma has an antique store brimming with pretty things that she has collected over the years. Whenever her grandma visits her, Rabieta knows that she will bring her some interesting gift. But this time she only gets a sock! Why would somebody want a single sock? Rabieta discovers that it turns out to be more useful than she thought. A funny story about how to use imagination in daily life

Manuel Monroy was born in Mexico City in 1971. He studied graphic design. He combines teaching with poster design and other projects. He has worked as an illustrator since 1994. He has exhibited his work in individual and collective exhibitions, and has won a variety of awards

P

rofessor Revillod has collected many pictures of extremely exotic animals during his numerous trips around the world. Come and see over 4 000 of his finest specimens, in a stylishly designed and innovative picture book.

Miguel Murugarren was born in Spain. He studied philosophy and literature. He is interested in advertising, graphic design and music. Javier Sáez was born in Spain. He studied Fine Arts. He illustrates and writes his own books, like Picopelosplumas and Los tres erizos, and works for many publishing houses. This book won the Ninth International Children’s and Young People’s Picture Book Award in 2004 French, German and English rights sold.

IX Picture Book Award A la Orilla del Viento (Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1998). For children 4 and older.

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CHILDREN’S BOOKS

Rabieta Trebejos

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

¿Sansón?

Julieta y su caja de colores

[Samson?]

[Juliet and her Paintbox]

Text: Jenny Pavisic Illustrated by: Margarita Sada

Written and illustrated by Carlos Pellicer López

1st ed., Fce Mexico, 2007 28 pp. 17 × 22 cm (6.8 × 8.8 in) Picture book ISBN 9789681683351

3rd ed., Fce Mexico, 2000 32 pp. 24.5 x 30 cm (9.6 x 12 in) Picture book ISBN 9681645006

New!

O

ne rainy night Julieta decides to try out her watercolors for the first time. She discovers she can create on paper what she does not have in real life. This story shows children the relationship between the surrounding reality and the reality of art.

S

amson, a small, shy mouse, wonders why he was given the name of a mighty warrior. He thinks his parents must have made a mistake when they named him, until one day his name turns out to have a special meaning. A delightful book about identity and the meaning of names.

Carlos Pellicer López was born in Mexico City. He is a painter and author of several children’s books.

Jenny Pavisic is a psychoanalyst who also specializes in child development. She has been active in writing and promoting reading for nearly 20 years. She founded ReDSa (Knowledge Dissemination Network) and has coordinated various reading promotion projects. Besides writing children’s books, she continuously lectures all over Latin America. Margarita Sada received a degree in graphic design from the inba (Mexican Institute of Fine Arts) School of Design and continued her studies at the graduate level at the University of Mexico School of Art in visual design. Today she is both a painter and a children’s book illustrator. Juliet and her Paintbox received the Antonio Robles Award by IBBY (International Board on Books for Young People) in Mexico, ‘Placa Bienal de Bratislava’ and the Jack Ezra Keats Bronze Medal.

For children 3 and older.

For children 6 and older. Korean rights sold.

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CHILDREN’S BOOKS

Colores con brisa

[Colors on the Breeze] Text: Carlos Pellicer Illustrated by: Carlos Pellicer López 1st ed., Fce Mexico, 2006 40 pp. 21 × 27 cm (8.3 × 10.5 in) Picture book ISBN 9681678699

A

special book that introduces children to the world of poetry and pictures; a single poem is illustrated per double page spread. Carlos Pellicer López’s illustrations are a visual recreation of the poetic tone of the verses in colors and scenes that give the words a new meaning.

Carlos Pellicer was born in Villahermosa in the state of Tabasco in 1899 and died in Mexico City in 1977. He was a poet who wrote for the journals Falange, Ulises and Contemporáneos. He was also a professor of modern poetry at the University of Mexico and director of the Department of Literature of the Fine Arts Institute. He received the Mexican National Award for Literature in 1964. Carlos Pellicer López is a writer and artist. His work has appeared in anthologies published in the USA. His picture book Julieta y su caja de colores, also published by fce, received several awards, among them the 1982 Promexa Award, the 1983 Antoniorrobles Award, a Plaque in the 1985 Bratislava Biennial of Illustrations and the Ezra Jack Keats Bronze Medallion in 1986. His picture book Juan y sus zapatos also received the 1982 Promexa Award.

Selected for The White Ravens 2007. For children 5 and older.

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CHILDREN’S BOOKS

La suerte de Ozu

Libro Caracol

[Ozu’s Luck]

[Snail Book]

Written and illustrated by Claudia Rueda

Written and illustrated by Javier Sáez Castán

1st ed., Fce Mexico, 2003 32 pp. 17 x 22 cm (8.6 x 6.6 in) Picture Book ISBN 9681670515

1st ed., Fce Mexico, 2007 24 pp. 23 × 23 cm (9 × 9 in) Picture book ISBN 9789681683689

I

n this book, young children can learn about shapes through pictures and games. The Victorian-style drawings are exquisitely composed within blocks, which are arranged in an overall design.

Javier Sáez Castán studied fine arts at the University of Valencia. He has been an illustrator for more than fifteen years, and his books have won awards in several countries. He has also been a teacher, and directed educational and cultural workshops. He is the illustrator of El animalario universal by Miguel Murrugarren, a fce book which won the Ninth International Children’s and Young People’s Picture Book Award in 2004.

D

uring wartime a child and his father live on a farm. They experience all kinds of things but both father and son have different points of view. As time goes by they discover the many advantages of this interaction. This is a magnificent version of a Taoist fable about the relativism and the wisdom of fate.

For children 4 and older.

New!

Claudia Rueda is an outstanding Colombian writer and illustrator. This book received a Mention in the Picture Book Award A la Orilla del Viento by Fondo de Cultura Económica. For children 4 and older. French rights sold.

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CHILDREN’S BOOKS

¿Para qué usas la lengua?

[What do you Use your Tongue for?] Text: María del Carmen Sánchez Mora Illustrated by: Jonathan Farr 1st ed., Fce Mexico, 2007 32 pp. 18 × 18 cm (approx. 7 × 7 in) Picture book ISBN 9789681683665

New!

T

ongues are good for much more than we might imagine. Animals use them as detectors or weapons; to hunt, taste, smell or talk. In this book, the interplay between words and pictures leads very young readers to discover how animal tongues have many different shapes and uses. They will even discover more about their own tongues!

María del Carmen Sánchez Mora graduated from the University of Mexico in biology, and earned a master’s degree in ecology from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in science from the University of Mexico. She began writing about science fifteen years ago at the University Science Communication Center. She has contributed to several programs at Universum, the University of Mexico science museum. Her personal interests include teaching biology and scientific illustration. She is a member of the ERIDOB (European Researchers in Didactics of Biology). Jonathan Farr was born in Oxford in 1973. He studied sculpture at the Slade School of Fine Art in London. His work has been exhibited in Mexico and Europe. He paints murals and creates stained glass windows for churches, and has illustrated books for various publishers. He is also the illustrator of the fce books Ripios y adivinanzas del mar and Las aventuras de Max y su ojo submarino. For children 3 and older.

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CHILDREN’S BOOKS

La Muerte pies ligeros

Un pajarillo canta

[Light-Footed Death]

[A Bird Sings]

Text: Natalia Toledo Illustrated by: Francisco Toledo

Text: Ricardo Yáñez Illustrated by: Carlos Pellicer López

1st ed., Fce Mexico, 2005 56 pp. 21 x 27 cm (8.2 x 10.6 in) Picture Book ISBN 9681676718

1st ed., Fce Mexico, 2006 48 pp. 21 × 28 cm (8.3 × 11 in) Picture book ISBN 9681682505

T

old as a legend, Light-footed Death gives a humorous explanation of how Death came to Earth. The idea for this book came from some of Francisco Toledo’s engravings of Death jumping rope with different animals, all from the region of Tehuantepec, where the artist and his daughter were born. The story is based on ancient cultural heritage, and reinvents oral tradition. The magnificent images of Francisco Toledo recreate the atmosphere of popular stories and legends in a playful fashion and turn the book into a valuable collectible for all those interested in the painter’s work.

Natalia Toledo was born in Juchitán, Oaxaca in 1967. She is a bilingual poet (Zapotec-Spanish). Some of her published titles are: Olivo negro; Flor de pantano; Mujeres de sol, mujeres de oro, and Paraíso de fisuras. Francisco Toledo was born in Juchitán, Oaxaca in 1940. Since 1959 his work has been exhibited in different museums in México, United States, South America, and Europe. Recently he was awarded Right Livelihood Award (Alternative Nobel Price) for his Commitment and Art for the protection and preservation of the natural and cultural environment in Oaxaca.

T

his book of poems by Veracruzan poet Ricardo Yáñez introduces children to poetry in its purest form.

Ricardo Yáñez was born in Guadalajara in 1948. He studied literature at the University of Guadalajara and the University of Mexico. In addition to his work as a journalist at the newspapers Unomásuno and La Jornada, he has taught and promoted culture, and led poetry workshops throughout Mexico. His books of poems include Ni lo que digo, Deja de ser, Antes del habla, and Si la llama. Carlos Pellicer López is a writer and artist. His work has appeared in anthologies published in the USA. His picture book Julieta y su caja de colores, also published by fce, received several awards, among them the 1982 Promexa Award, the 1983 Antonio Robles Award, a Plaque in the 1985 Bratislava Biennial of Illustrations and the Ezra Jack Keats Bronze Medallion in 1986. His picture book Juan y sus zapatos also received the 1982 Promexa Award. For children 5 and older.

For children 7 and older. English rights sold.

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F O N DO DE C ULTURA ECO N Ó MI C A

FONDO DE CULTURA ECONÓMICA Carretera Picacho-Ajusco 227 Bosques del Pedregal, Tlalpan 14738 Mexico City, Mexico Tel: (52-55) 5227-4672 Fax: (52-55) 5227-4656

Cover Illustration: Ángel Bracho, La espiga, linoleum engraving, ca. 1960, 13 × 17 in, from the book El Taller de Gráfica Popular by Humberto Musacchio

Fondo de Cultura Economica has foreign branches in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Guatemala, Peru, Spain, United States and Venezuela

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