Fernando Báez

Writer, international advisor, strategic speaker

A life devoted to a subject that both fascinates and horrifies him: cultural destruction, and the mass murder of memory.

Venezuelan and Spanish writer
Born in San Félix, Ciudad Guayana

“Impressive… The best book written on this subject.”

Noam Chomsky, on A Universal History of the Destruction of Books

His work has been reviewed and discussed in

  • Harper’s Magazine
  • Publishers Weekly
  • Kirkus Reviews
  • Le Monde diplomatique
  • Books
  • Tehran Times

Statement

Hello. My name is Fernando Báez. I am a Venezuelan and Spanish writer. I was born in San Félix, Ciudad Guayana.

I have devoted my life to a subject that both fascinates and horrifies me: cultural destruction. I have scoured villages, archives and libraries on five continents in search of examples of how men have endeavored to erase the traces of their own civilization or that of their neighbors. I refer to the mass murder of memory. I have studied with perpetual amazement and pain phenomena such as iconoclasm, biblioclasm, epistemoclasm, ethnocide or memoricide.

I began my first steps with a look at myths, searching for the archetypes of creation and apocalypse that are repeated in many cultures; I have come to the present with an evolutionary and critical, hyperrationalist vision, trying to understand the processes of transculturation and cultural plundering. I have discovered that cultural destruction is not complete if it is not accompanied by an attack on the symbols of identity, which are the support of dissidence. Whoever doubts his own values, whoever hesitates because his memory is altered, is an easy prey in a conflict.

I am the author of several works, including A Universal History of the Destruction of Books, The Cultural Plundering of Latin America, The Lost Memory of the World and The Cultural Destruction of Iraq. I also wrote a novel called The Cambridge Translator and I have translated ancient Greek texts.

I have traveled to 53 countries, which made me a more tolerant intellectual, and I have been translated into 17 languages.

I am just a writer who does not want death to have the last word in his life.

Fernando Báez standing between library shelves, arms folded
Among the stacks. The public library of his childhood in San Félix was destroyed when the Caroní river burst its banks.

A people whose library is burned does not lose paper. It loses the proof that it existed.

  • IconoclasmThe destruction of images and monuments.
  • BiblioclasmThe destruction of books and libraries.
  • EpistemoclasmThe destruction of a system of knowledge.
  • EthnocideThe erasure of a people's culture.
  • MemoricideThe mass murder of memory itself.

Books

Where to find them

Translated into 17 languages.
Published across four continents.

53

countries travelled

17

languages

20

publishing territories

Travelling to 53 countries, he says, is what made him a more tolerant intellectual.

United States, Romania, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Czech Republic, France, Italy, Portugal, Sweden, India, Türkiye, Tunisia, Pakistan, Egypt, Qatar, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia.

Editions

Seventeen languages. Twenty publishing territories. The same book, burning on every cover.

  • Cover of Historia universal de la destrucción de libros, Destino, second edition

    Historia universal de la destrucción de libros

    Destino · Spain · 2nd edition

  • Cover of the English edition, A Universal History of the Destruction of Books, Atlas & Co.

    A Universal History of the Destruction of Books

    Atlas & Co. · United States

  • Japanese edition of A Universal History of the Destruction of Books, stacked in a bookshop

    書物の破壊の世界史

    Japan

  • Cover of Nueva historia universal de la destrucción de libros, showing a burning book

    Nueva historia universal de la destrucción de libros

    Destino · Spain

  • Cover of La destrucción cultural de Iraq, with a golden Mesopotamian mask

    La destrucción cultural de Iraq

    Foreword by Noam Chomsky

  • Cover of Historia de la antigua biblioteca de Alejandría

    Historia de la antigua biblioteca de Alejandría

    Vintila Horia Prize

  • Cover of the novel El traductor de Cambridge

    El traductor de Cambridge

    Lengua de Trapo · Novel

  • Turkish edition, Kitap Kıyımının Evrensel Tarihi, published by Can Yayınları

    Kitap Kıyımının Evrensel Tarihi

    Can Yayınları · Türkiye

  • Cover of How They See Us: Meditations on America, edited by James Atlas

    How They See Us: Meditations on America

    Atlas & Co. · Anthology

What has been said

A terrifying, masterly book from the erudite pen of Fernando Báez. Alberto Manguel
Author of A History of Reading
A sobering reminder of just how deep-seated is the instinct to destroy… Kirkus Reviews
Cover of La destrucción cultural de Irak, crediting a foreword by Noam Chomsky

Chomsky did not simply praise the work. He wrote the foreword to The Cultural Destruction of Iraq in 2004, and his name is printed on the cover.

Five continents.
Villages, archives and libraries.

He does not study cultural destruction from a desk. He goes and looks at it.

Press

He contributes to magazines and newspapers in thirty-two countries.

International advisory

He went to see it with his own eyes.

After the 2003 invasion, Báez travelled to Iraq as a member of the international commissions investigating the destruction of the country's libraries and museums. He documented the looting of the National Library and the Baghdad Museum on the ground: burned manuscripts, emptied archives, millennia of writing turned to ash in a matter of days.

Since then he has advised governments and institutions on the destruction of cultural property, and is a member of the International Centre of Arab Studies.

Request an advisory brief
Fernando Báez documenting a damaged heritage site on location

Speaking

  • MemoricideWhy erasing memory precedes erasing a people, and how to recognise it early.
  • The fragility of knowledgeFrom the tablets of Sumer to the server farm: what every age got wrong about permanence.
  • Identity under attackCultural destruction is never complete without an assault on the symbols that sustain dissent.
  • Cultural plunderingWho owns the heritage of the global South, and what its removal actually costs.
Invite Fernando to speak
Fernando Báez speaking on a panel, wearing interpretation headphones

He has lectured at

Oxford, Cambridge, Paris, Madrid, Berlin, Barcelona, Cairo, Doha, Kuwait, Bogotá, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Caracas.

Contact

Publishing enquiries, translation rights, advisory work, speaking engagements and press.