BIOGRAPHY
- To present Herbert Daniel, I have transcribed a short and
good-humored presentation originally published on the back cover of his first
autobiographical work "Passagem para o próximo sonho
(Passage to the Next Dream)" (You can read the book in its entirety on your
computer) that gives a very superficial summary of his life. Considering
the difficulty of summarizing Daniel's life on this small page, this short
profile I hope will be a good beginning for understanding the full course of
sensitive and tempered passages and reflexions with an artless humor, of
patriotism, his fears, his love affairs (por qua pas?), his longings for
freedom, justice and love... with his fantastic tales of escapes from
military sieges, his resistence to the dictatorial government, his deeds
that made the contemporary history of a Brazil that has changed little in
dignity. What follows is a simple report of one human being, a teller of
tales who believed in his utopias and recorded his critical and disarming
reflexions in his works...
- The text treats the phase of his first three exiles, since the book dates from 1982:
- "Herbert, name of baptismal and birth certificates; Daniel, his nom de guerre. Medical student in the Federal University of Minas Gerais; 1.64 meters in height; film critic of Radio Belô; excused from regular military service for physical deficiency (miopia? flat feet?); author of student plays; very curly hair, brown and half-closed eyes, flat nose; vice-president of the Student Association of the Federal University of Minas Gerais; a little fat; militant successively of POLOP, COLINA, VAR-PALMARES e VPR; clandestine for six years, without ever being captured; homosexual, already no longer clandestine; bank robber, car thief, planner of sabotage, guerilla in the Valley of Ribeira, kidnapper of ambassadors (to the number of two), surviver; reader, always, always; pamphleteer, student of gymnastics; shy, non-dancer; journalist in Portugal, on a women's magazine; in Lisbon, medical student again; married to a man, clearly homosexual; pants size 39, uses 40; masseur, waiter, cashier, bouncer, manager, porter in gay baths, in Paris, capital of France, voilà; speechmaker; inveterate talker in three languages, thinker in as many, with accent - not born in Minas with impunity. Found to know how to do almost nothing of almost everything; occupation: bum. Next to last exile in Paris: excluded from amnesty. Without pardon (escaped by insult), offense lapsed: observed the life of others. Writer."
- On returning from exile, Daniel developed political projects, interacting with society, giving seminars explaining his time in clandestinity and his more tranquil and nostalgic times spent in exile. His political reflexions and his collection of vanguardist proposals to approach taboo themes, initiating the debate about the political relations until then considered "less important", like homosexuality and male dominance. One of his proposals was the inclusion of the homosexual theme as subject of discussions in the parties of opposition that were organized after the political opening. He evaluated the possibility of a political dialogue about homosexuality, homophobia and their sequels, such as suicide and isolation. The question of recognizing the difference - basic cement of democracy - until then outside the existing politics.
- He was candidate for state deputy for the Labor Party (PT) of Rio de Janeiro, but did not obtain sufficient votes for election.
- On the appearance of the first headlines about a terrible illness that was cutting the life of various North American gays, Daniel was impressed with the panic and the language - prejudiced, discriminatory and alarmist - adopted by the communications media, foretoken of the dissemination of another ideological virus much more disastrous than the biological virus of AIDS itself, which he entitled "the third epidemic". His work began to treat this thematic aspect even before Daniel discovered that he was a carrier of the virus.
- Curiously the entry point for what I have entitled "the fourth exile" lived by Daniel are the forty seconds of perplexity after his consultation with a physician academically and humanly unprepared to give the positive result of his serum test. This event was related thoughtfully by Daniel in two of his books.
- The recent legacy that Daniel left for humanity was his struggle to disarm and understand the panic and, at times, the violence caused by the cultural complexity of the distorted language associated with AIDS. Daniel imagined other realities much more lucid and humane about living with AIDS. His discourse was also his image. He used this courage to show his face and to tell through the communications media that to be a carrier of the AIDS virus does not signify a civil death.
- His last three books addressed this conception of solidarity with new reflexions about AIDS, in search of a humane and fitting language in the medical threatment and in the interpersonal and labor relations of the carrier of the AIDS virus.
- Herbert Daniel participated as director of the Brazilian Interdisciplinary AIDS Association (ABIA), an association founded by Herbert de Souza, and was president of the group for VIDDA - Respect, Integration and Dignity of the AIDS Victim, with branches in various states of the country. Through these non-governmental organizations, with the participation of society, Herbert Daniel thought the could find other modes of living with AIDS, of promoting social and political participation with the aim of redirecting the ideological conception of stigma and banishment, of the need to spread information about prevention and the responsibility of government to participate in the face of an epidemic that puts at risk the lives of thousands of Brazilians.
- The text treats the phase of his first three exiles, since the book dates from 1982:
Herbert Eustáquio de Carvalho
*14/12/46 Belo Horizonte - MG
+29/03/92 Rio de Janeiro - RJ
THE EXILES