Documenting diversity and democracy in Brazil collection

Leila Míccolis (b. 1947) is a Brazilian author, poet, script-writer, and literary critic. A native of Rio de Janeiro, Míccolis holds a Master of Science degree in Literature and Literary Theory from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. She has edited over thirty books, and is internationally renowned for her involvement in the Brazilian poetical generation of the 1970s and 1980s, as well as her script writing for soap operas in the 1980s and 1990s.

In addition to being a participant and authority in Brazilian alternative poetry and literature, Míccolis was also a collector. Her collection was painstakingly accumulated over the course of forty-five years. The collection is of an "alternative" character because it contains materials that reflect counter cultural resistance, in its widest possible sense, and includes, but is not limited to, political and counter cultural pamphlets and periodicals, concrete poetry, neo-concrete poetry and other vanguard/avant-garde artistic experimentation, fanzines, film reviews, university publications, theater, and musical pieces. As opposed to the commercial and widely-circulated press of "official” Brazilian governmental venues, the publications contained in the collection especially treat stigmatized or marginalized groups, such as Afro-Brazilians, women, sexual minorities, in various forms including literary pieces, editorial cartoons, political comics, sociopolitical critiques of "Brazilianness," humor, and the promotion of ecological and environmental awareness. The collection also contains a large variety of materials from the 1970s Marginália movement, a term used to describe a series of underground publications which circulated during the military dictatorship.

As such, her collection tells the story of contemporary Brazil (1960s to the present) from an "unofficial" perspective, one which often diverts from the stereotypical images of what Brazilians and non-Brazilians alike have come to understand as "brasilidade" (Brazilian character) during the second half of the twentieth century.

Steven Butterman, assistant professor of Portuguese in the University’s Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, came across the Collection while conducting research for his book, Perversions on Parade (Hyperbole Books, San Diego State University Press, 2005), the first book-length scholarly treatment in English of Brazilian poet Glauco Mattoso’s work. Mattoso, who was a co-collaborator in the creation of "Lampiao da Esquina," explored themes of homosexual transgression as a form of cultural resistance. “Ms. Míccolis has managed to preserve a diverse host of alternative voices which sought creative expression despite being officially silenced. Collectively these works represent Brazil’s burgeoning civil rights movement within the surrounding culture of repression,” states Professor Butterman.

Leila Míccolis resides in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.