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ANTONIO RENATO HENRIQUES was born in Porto Alegre - Brazil, in 1952. Since he was very young he already expressed a precocious inclination for literature, because he writes since he was a kid. In his adolescence he directed a theatre and musical school show, with some of his texts and other one´s, which was presented at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul – UFRGS and received positive criticism from the newspapers. At the age of fifteen, his talent was discovered by the Argentinian critic, writer and professor, Américo Vallejo, who decided to include him in an anthology of young Latin-American poets and intermediated an adaptation of his texts for theatre. These texts were represented in Argentina, but the anthology was never published, because the military dictatorship arrived and Vallejo was under cassation in the university, was imprisoned and later became sick and died of a rare illness. The first of Henriques´ books, written in his adolescence (Transecrise), expresses tales and poems of that time. |
 Graduating at a Music Class
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H enriques had to work and study, he worked at IBM at the beginning of the seventies, when computers were still big elephants in a frozen room; he graduated in Philosophy and continued studying, becoming a Master in Philosophy and specialist in anthropology, plastic arts and clinical philosophy (which turned him into a therapist), besides a theatre director.
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He was a professor at Catholic University of RS – PUC/RS for fifteen years, where he taught philosophy in graduation and plastic arts in the post-graduation course. He also was a public teacher, when he acted as a syndicalist and turned into the General Secretary of the CPERS-Syndicate. At the time, the CPERS was the biggest teachers´ union in Latin America, which led him to long strikes and campings in front of the Government Palace, public parades of protest and congregations of more than 40 thousand people. As a political militant, he was a candidate for the town councillor in Porto Alegre and became a party assemblyman, integrating the party state directorate and executive commission and he presided a political institute (Institute Teotônio Villela - RS). Due to this, he wrote works of political-ideological character, which were published in Brasília. He acted as a counsellor to the Secretary of Culture, when he helped create the State Bureau for Culture, of the Counsel of the Municipal Secretaries of Culture and the State System of Museums, having written a final version of the chapter on culture voted by the State Constituent. He also worked at the Civil House of the Government, serving as a direct counselor to the governor of the Rio Grande do Sul.
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 Talking in Assembly |
 Spirituality |
As Henriques had had spiritual and mystic experiences at the age of 17, which led him to study the occult, esoterism and oriental philosophy, he cultivated in a parallel form a life dedicated to spirituality, which he managed to insert between his strike engagements, political and sindical congresses, with yoga and meditation retreats. He was a disciple of Mahatma Chandra Bala Sat Guru and became the president of the Universal Great Brotherhood – GFU and pilgrimaged to the Andes. In the seventies he helped found the Ecological Cooperative Coolméia, a precursor in agriculture without pesticides in Brazil, which nowadays brings together producers and consumers in markets, supermarkets, restaurants and natural health food stores. He studied Buddhism and organized the arrival of the Dalai Lama in Porto Alegre in the nineties. Hence his books on Eastern philosophy and the religious romance he is working on, located in the Hebrew region at the time of Christ.
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 In USA |
As a technician in Culture belonging to the State of Rio Grande do Sul - RS, he worked at the Art Museum of RS – MARGS and was the director of the Anthropological Museum of RS and of the Museum of Social Communication Hipólito José da Costa, receiving a scholarship from the American Association of Museum – AAM in the USA. Further, he worked at the State Bureau of Health, in Caxias do Sul - Brazil, where he lived for three years, acting at the Educational Nucleus for Collective Health, linked to the School of Public Health of the State RS, where he formed and qualified human resources in the area of public health in 50 municipalities of the Southern region.
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 Visiting Washington |
 Porto Alegre, 2004 |
A t the present moment he teaches at the Superior School of Publicity and Marketing – ESPM, in Porto Alegre and works as a technician in culture at the State Bureau of Culture. His abundant life, studies and experiences are expressed in his romance-essay “Memories of a Storm”. In spite of his numerous activities, Henriques is, more than anything, a writer and philosopher capable of producing, as now, three books simultaneously: an essay on the philosophy of science (The Being and the Physis), a novel (The Imprisoned Angel) and a romance (The Gospel according Judas Iscariot). We believe that such a creative and life impetus shows us what this author will be capable of producing in the future. |
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 Henriques and his wife, Angela |
In the midst of all this, Henriques married five times, and had a son from his first marriage, called Ariel. In Mexico, Ariel met and wedded Samantha, so Antonio Henriques became a grandfather of a Mexican grandson called Txai.
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 With his grandson, Txai |
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 Samantha |
Ariel, Samantha and Txai live in Puerto Vallarta, a touristic city, located at the shore of the Pacific Ocean, right next to Baía de Banderas, in Mexico, while Antonio Henriques lives with his wife Angela Cristina Lamotte in the town of Porto Alegre, Brazil. |
 Ariel |
