Alberto Cardín

Benigno Alberto Cardín Garay (15 January 1948 in Villamayor – 26 January 1992 in Barcelona) was a Spanish essayist and anthropologist, and one of the most important gay Spanish activists of the Spanish transition to democracy. He was also a prominent author of gay Spanish literature.

Biography

He was born in Villamayor, in Asturias but after a year and a half, he and his mother moved to Mexico where his father has a shirt factory. At the age of 9, he returned alone to Asturias in order to study at the Immaculate Conception's College in Gijón. He remained in college, initially as a boarding student until 1960 when he attended the school while living outside the grounds, until 1965. After a brief time in Deusto and trying to become a Jesuit, in 1968 he went to study Philosophy and Literature in Salamanca, before moving to Oviedo where he graduated in History of Medieval Art and History of Contemporary Art in 1972.

He continued his doctorate at the University of Barcelona in 1986, with the thesis title Dialectics and Cannibalism, in which he tried to deconstruct the concept of cannibalism, which has been used to try and vilify primitive people.

Works

According to Alberto Mira, Cardín was of the great Spanish heterodox thinkers of his time. His constant polemic, both intellectual and personal, his lack of respect for conventions and academic protocols, led him to write on an enormous number of topics, including his reflections on contemporary culture, anthropology, religion and philosophy.

Gay activist

Cardín always made it clear that his homosexual identity was an essential part of his life and the homosexual culture likewise was an essential part of his thinking. However, his relationship with gay activists, with whom he entered into contact at the end of the 70s, was never easy. After discovering that he was HIV-positive in 1984, he became the main voice in Spain dealing with the subject, talking about in terms of a cultural epidemic as well as an illness of the body, speaking clearly about all of the consequences and implications of the disease, including the homophobia and the passive government. In 1985, he compiled two volumes on this topic in collaboration with Armand de Fluvià, with articles that had been published in the US and Spain, fighting against the inaction of homosexual groups and the misinformation of the media. In 1991, when the disease was much better understood, he published AIDS: Biblical curse or lethal disease?.