Since 2016, Cambridge University Library has received a series of donations of Latin American and Iberian material from Dr. Robert Howes*, a former academic librarian at the UL and other institutions. 

The more recent donations are mostly from Brazil and are closely related to both his academic interests and his involvement in LGBTQ+ activism and publishing. 

Active in the gay liberation movement in the UK since the late 1970s, through his work with the London branch of the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA), Dr. Howes made contacts with activists in Brazil. Through his relationships with these activists and his regular visits to the country, which began in the 1970s while researching his PhD in Brazilian History, Dr. Howes built a unique collection that conveys the breadth of LGBTQ+ culture in Brazil and documents the country’s social history during a pivotal and turbulent period.  

The collection spans Brazil’s military dictatorship during the 1960s and 1970s, through its transition to democracy in the 1980s – covering the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s, when Brazil’s progressive and highly effective prevention campaign led the developing world – and on to the present day. 

The “gay press” in Brazil emerged as part of the broader alternative press in opposition to the military dictatorship during the 1970s and went through two major waves: the early 1980s and the transition to democracy, then the late 1980s and early 1990s, as HIV/AIDS prevention became the central focus. Much of what was published was highly ephemeral and marginal – Dr. Howes told me about the diverse ways in which he obtained some of this material: 

The material was acquired in a variety of ways. In one case, Lampião [da Esquina], I subscribed directly from the UK and all issues arrived safely apart from one supplement. (I similarly subscribed to the Portuguese paper Korpus, also donated to the UL). In other cases, a friend of mine in Brazil, the activist João Antônio de Mascarenhas, was a subscriber and passed the issues on to me after he had finished with them. This involved titles such as Ent&, Nós por exemplo and Sui Generis. In the case of the latter, I obtained issues by going to the publisher’s office in Copacabana and buying them directly. Similarly, with Um outro olhar, I bought copies when I interviewed the publisher and she kindly made photocopies of the earlier issues, which by then were out-of-print, in order to make a complete set.  

Most of the other titles I owe to the generosity of Brazilian activists. Luiz Mott regularly sent me issues of the Boletim do Grupo Gay da Bahia and its successor Homo Sapiens, as well as other periodicals, books and booklets produced by the GGB, which was a prolific publisher. Other titles and issues were passed to me by friends and activists, who knew of my interest, or were items which I came across at meetings, conferences and organisations that I visited (mainly HIV/AIDS prevention material). 

Generally speaking, I have tried to obtain a sample issue of each title but I have not necessarily tried to make up a full set. This was because there was a limit on what I could carry on the plane home and the amount of storage space in my house. Complete sets are obviously preferable but sample issues are useful in showing what category a title fell into and they help to give an idea of the range of material covered by the denominator “gay press”.

Dr. Howes’s words indicate the rarity and unique historical value of much of the material that he has donated – a great deal of it is not held anywhere else in the UK, and some not even anywhere outside Brazil.  

His correspondence with João Antônio de Mascarenhas and Luiz Mott (referred to by Dr. Howes above) is a particular highlight; both men were key figures in LGBTQ+ activism and friends with Dr. Howes since the 1970s. João Antônio de Mascarenhas (1927-1998) was a lawyer who organised two campaigns in 1987-88 and 1992-93 to have discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation outlawed in the new Brazilian constitution. The anthropologist Luiz Mott was founder and president of the Grupo Gay da Bahia (GGB), the oldest gay rights organization in Brazil. This correspondence is held in the University Library’s Manuscripts department.

As a whole, Dr. Howes donations include a mix of monographs, periodicals, ephemera such as posters and pamphlets, and correspondence. The collection is held within the classmarks CCA-E.71 and is available to request and consult in the University Library’s Special Collections department.

In 2018, some of the donated material was displayed in the Queering the UL exhibition organised to mark LGBT History Month. Earlier donations consisted primarily of material from Spain, Portugal, and Spanish-speaking Latin America, and included such treasures as a personally inscribed book by the great Reinaldo Arenas. As much of LGBTQ+ communication and culture has moved online today, these collections represent a unique period when printed media was the primary means of connection and representation amongst LGBTQ+ communities.

Christopher Greenberg

*to learn more about Dr. Robert Howes, please see this page from the Bishopsgate Institute, where his LGBTQ+ photographic archive is held.