Depois de agosto, antes do fim: a AIDS como discurso autoficcional na obra de Caio Fernando Abreu

Abstract

In the 1980’s, the discovery of HIV virus and the resulting epidemic of AIDS caused a big astonishment in the world population. The lack of scientific basis about the subject resulted in the spread of a prejudiced discourse which associated the virus to the homosexuality that the AIDS has become known as the “gay plague”, a social stigma which was extended to other marginalized layers of population later, therefore implied in a high level of discrimination, exacerbated by the propagation of media tendentious information and the fanciful exploration of the matter. This whole scenery limited the Brazilian Literature, at that time, to shy manifestations, mainly with regard to the autobiographical genres. However, fighting against it, the writer Caio Fernando Abreu emerged with great texts in different genres (novels, short stories, chronicles, letters etc), all of them related to an intimate atmosphere, considering the AIDS in a shocking and emotional way, conquering many readers and highlighting the Brazilian Literature in that period. Considering the fact that the writer himself lived the AIDS experience in a seropositive condition, this work aims at investigating the intersections between the real and the fictional, amenable of being identified in several textual fields used by Caio Fernando Abreu, and, thus, recognize such narratives as self- insertions. For such purpose, we decided to detach the analysis of the short story “Depois de agosto” [“After August”], published in Ovelhas negras [Black sheep] (2011); some chronicles included in Pequenas epifanias [Little epiphanies] (2012); and some letters collected in Caio Fernando Abreu: cartas [Caio Fernando Abreu: letters] (2002). The self- insertion (autofiction in French) is a term proposed by Serge Doubrovsky (1977) from the concepts of Philippe Lejeune’s theory (1975), concepts which are still being developed by French critics like Colonna (2014), Vilain (2014) and Gasparini (2014).