Background
Fernando Benítez was born on January 16, 1912, in Mexico City, Mexico. He was the oldest of four children. His father, an heir to a mining fortune, who was educated in Paris, frittered away the wealth, drinking in bars.
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Fernando Benítez was born on January 16, 1912, in Mexico City, Mexico. He was the oldest of four children. His father, an heir to a mining fortune, who was educated in Paris, frittered away the wealth, drinking in bars.
Fernando was a self-educated man and had no degree.
Fernando's first writing job was with the government paper "El Nacional", which he joined in 1936. While there, he organized a supplement, called "The Mexican Magazine of Culture", but left it in 1949 to join the staff of "Novedades", where he founded a similar insert, "Mexico in Culture", of which he was a director during the period from 1949 till 1961. Also, between 1946 and 1947, Benítez served as a private secretary to the Interior Minister - Héctor Pérez Martínez.
In 1957, Fernando held a post of a director of "El Diario de la Tarde". Benitez also worked for the magazine "Siempre!". Moreover, he served as a section editor at the newspaper "Unomasuno" between 1977 and 1983 and held the same post at "La Jornada Semanal" from 1984 till 1985. In 1991, Benitez served as a Mexico’s ambassador to the Dominican Republic. In addition, he held a post of a professor at the School of Political and Social Sciences at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
In addition, Fernando wrote more than twenty books, most of which have not been translated into English.
(The original book was published in 1968.)
1975
Quotes from others about the person
''He made an invisible population visible to us. He once told me that when an Indian dies, it's as though an entire library had died." - Carlos Fuentes, a novelist
"He was a powerful promoter of talent." - Elena Poniatowska, a journalist and author
"He wrote very well, and he wrote a lot, but he didn't limit himself to that. Instead, he passed his life, helping others to write, organizing literary circles, that worked marvelously, greatly elevating Mexican culture." - Gabriel Zaid, a poet
Fernando was married to Georgina Conde Taboada. Their marriage produced one son - Fernando Benitez Conde.