O jornal norte-americano Miami Herald, através do jornalista Noah Bierman, publicou a matéria transcrita abaixo em 27 de fevereiro de 2006, sobre a coleção de jornais alternativos brasileiros do acervo particular de Leila Míccolis cedida à Livraria da Universidade de Miami (Flórida) — a melhor solução encontrada de viabilizar a preservação desse importante acervo, e de propiciar a digitalização do seu conteúdo. A inauguração do setor "The Leila Miccolis Brazilian Alternative Press Collection", deve realizar-se dentro de um ano e meio, após a catalogação de todo o material, e contará com a presença de Leila e Urhacy. Nossos agradecimentos especiais ao Prof. Dr. Steven Butterman, do Departamento de Línguas e Literaturas Estrangeiras, ramificação do Center for Latin American Studies, responsável pelo intercâmbio e pela viabilização dessa operação.
Posted on Mon, Feb. 27, 2006
Brazil's history now an open book at UM
A rare archive bought by UM tells the history of Brazil's struggle under military rule
BY NOAH BIERMAN
nbierman@MiamiHerald.com
For decades, a giant South American nation's countercultural history has been stored in a poet's house -- more than two hours from a major city -- among roosters, goats and an incredible orchid garden.
International scholars who wanted to study Brazil's military-dictatorship years, from 1964 through 1985, would journey from Rio de Janeiro to the home of Leila Miccolis, an activist, writer and a sort of patron saint of hippy pack rats.
They would parse hundreds of thousands of frayed yellowed pages from alternative newspapers, magazines, mimeographs and posters. The subversive poetry, the wacky comics, the strident calls for change told a story of Brazilians on society's margins -- gays, blacks, feminists, artists, socialists, children, the poor. The writers and publishers risked censorship, imprisonment, outcast status or exile from military leaders who kept a tight grip around the official story that Brazil was part of an economic miracle.
''It is very much like a pilgrimage,'' said Steven Butterman, a Brazil expert at the University of Miami, the new home of the collection.
In recent years, Miccolis had grown concerned that termites or the elements would accomplish what censors couldn't.
''I was starting to worry they would deteriorate,'' she said through a translator during a telephone interview from her home in Maricá.
So Miccolis sold her trove to UM for an undisclosed sum. Butterman persuaded her that UM would preserve the ''unofficial'' history and make it open to scholars -- both professional and amateur. It began arriving last summer and is almost ready for public perusal.
A nondescript room on the eighth floor of UM's Richter Library now stores 93 protective boxes otherwise known as the ''Leila Miccolis Brazilian Alternative Press Collection.'' Far from rural Brazil, the storage room is always 70 degrees with 50 percent humidity and low light. Special collections librarian Maria Estorino and her staff have been cataloging the pages, placing them under a new $80,000 French scanner called the ''DigiBook'' to ensure posterity and broaden access for those who cannot travel to UM's Coral Gables campus.
But underneath the sterile boxes, underground newspapers maintain their spontaneity.
Butterman pulls out a mimeograph with the words ''I Don't Know,'' hand-written in English. Drawings of two naked women -- one with a blindfold and another headless -- appear below. A man's line-drawn head stares from a horizon, accompanied by a stream-of-consciousness poem.
Butterman translates roughly from Portuguese, something about modesty and the urge to carry someone away. ''But whether I love you, I'm not sure, since I haven't smelled your breath yet,'' the conclusion reads.
Butterman believes it's a statement about gender and relationships, the treatment of women as objects. But he could spend hours on the page to give it the full scholarly treatment.
Another cartoon image, a cover of a magazine, depicts a homeless man arguing with a tabby cat for a space in the alley. The cat insists, ``I got here first.''
Butterman has been particularly interested in the 38-issue set of a nationally circulated underground newspaper called Lampiao de Esquina (The Corner Lantern), published from 1978 through 1981. It was a pioneering journal of the nation's gay political movement and Miccolis was a major gay-rights activist and contributor who continues to publish on the Internet.
''It was another vision that is not portrayed by the regular press,'' said Miccolis, who wouldn't give her age. ``There are several small newspapers considered kind of subversive and they give the opinion of people who weren't satisfied and, for a long time, the press wasn't covering.''
A lawyer who turned activist in the 1960s, Miccolis said she was worried the papers might disappear if she donated or sold them to a Brazilian institution. She said she has seen it happen with similar documents that upset the dominant ideology.
Head UM librarian William Walker said he would like to make the entire collection available on the Internet with open access, but may have copyright hurdles on some of the material. In either case, he expects to open the original documents to the general public by appointment within the next two months.
Butterman stayed at Miccolis' house four times since 1999, primarily to research a book, Perversions on Parade, about the poet Glauco Mattoso. Now he hopes research fellows from around the world will come to UM, for months at a time, to study the collection.
James N. Green, a Brown University professor and past president of the Brazilian Studies Association, is eager to get his hands on the material for his next book, a biography of a Brazilian AIDS movement founder.
''I would have love to have bought'' the Miccolis collection, Green said. "It will make the [UM] library collection a place where any serious scholar on last 40 years of Brazil will have to go.''
Translator Ghislaine Miller contributed to this report.
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Matérias correlatas:
• Informativo da Universidade de Miami - University of Miami News
(inclusive com links para as primeiras capas de alguns jornais alternativos brasileiros):
http://www.miami.edu/UMH/CDA/UMH_Main/1,1770,2593-1;44916-3,00.html
• O Globo de 23/04/2006: "Imprensa alternativa do Brasil é destaque nos EUA", matéria de Ciça Guimarães