Lula

by Fernando Morais

The first – and long-awaited – major biography of Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva

Lula is among the greatest political figures in Brazilian history. The only president in the country with a working-class background, combined with a party that was profoundly original in its roots, he exercised charismatic power and influence in a more lasting way than any other public figure in the republican period.

Since 2011, Fernando Morais, one of Brazil's leading writers, has gained direct, frank and frequent access to Lula. To these dozens of hours of testimonies, he has added a reporter's flair and captivating prose to compose a biography that paints a picture in all its grandeur and complexity.

In a narrative that makes use of flashforwards and flashbacks to maintain an electrifying pace, Morais goes from Lula's childhood to the annulment of his convictions, in 2021, passing through the new unionism, the ABC strikes, the foundation of the PT and the first election campaign.

Genres: Politics

413 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 20, 2024

About the author

Jornalista desde 1961, trabalhou nas redações do Jornal da Tarde, Veja, Folha de S. Paulo e TV Cultura.

Recebeu três vezes o Prêmio Esso e quatro vezes o Prêmio Abril de Jornalismo. Foi deputado estadual durante oito anos (pelo MDB-SP e depois pelo PMDB-SP) e secretário da Cultura (1988-1991) e da Educação (1991-1993) do Estado de São Paulo. É autor dos roteiros das minisséries documentais Brasil 500 Anos e Cinco dias que abalaram o Brasil, exibidas pelo canal GNT/Globosat.

Escreveu, entre outros, Transamazônica (Brasiliense, 1970, com Ricardo Gontijo e Alfredo Rizutti), A Ilha (Alfa-Ômega, 1975, reeditado pela Companhia das Letras em 2001), Olga (Alfa-Ômega, 1985, reeditado pela Companhia das Letras em 1993), Chatô, o rei do Brasil (Companhia das Letras, 1994), Corações sujos (Companhia das Letras, 2000), Cem quilos de ouro (Companhia das Letras, 2002), Na toca dos Leões (Planeta, 2004) e Montenegro (Planeta, 2006).

Tem livros traduzidos em dezenove países. Em 2001 Corações sujos recebeu o Prêmio Jabuti de Livro do Ano de Não-Ficção. Em 2004 Olga foi transformado em filme pelo diretor Jayme Monjardim, tendo sido visto por mais de cinco milhões de espectadores e indicado pra representar o país no Oscar de 2005. É membro do Conselho Político do jornal Brasil de Fato e do Conselho Superior da Telesur, TV pública latino-americana sediada em Caracas, Venezuela. É membro da Academia Marianense de Letras, onde ocupa a Cadeira nº 13, que teve como primeiro titular o presidente Tancredo Neves.

Reviews

[Robert · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley and Verso in exchange for an honest review.

I was disappointed by this. Lula is a really interesting figure, but this isn't really a biography of him. The first third of the book is a moment-by-moment account of his arrest and imprisonment in 2018. It's almost halfway through the book before you get some biographical details on his background and details. Then the book focuses on his union activities and early political activism before abruptly ending. If you think you're getting his full life story, think again, this book completely skips his presidency, in other words the most interesting aspect of his life.

Another reason this isn't really a biography, is because the focus is often on everyone except Lula. There are a lot of details about people who briefly interact with Lula or the wider political scene, but at times Lula is forgotten. The author is far too fond of dropping long lists of names or sometimes entire news articles into the narrative where they don't belong.

Even if this was written for a Brazilian audience, there is a surprisingly lack of context explained. At no point does it even mention on what charges Lula was arrested or what Operation Car Wash was. We are told that a hacker uncovers crucial information that secures Lula's release, but it never says what this information is. This is even more odd because there are many tangents and side-points that get far too much attention, while the important details are ignored.

Finally this book has some of the most bizarre chapter titles I have ever seen. For example, chapter 5 is "After standing up to the neighbors and the Federal Police, the people spend 581 days yelling greetings to Lula. He can’t see them from his cell, but he can hear them." Chapter 17 is "Clobbered in the polls, Lula sinks into depression and decides to abandon politics. He travels to Cuba, listens to Fidel, and returns to Brazil to become the best-elected congressman in history."

[Mandy]

This was hard going and pretty disappointing. I was looking forward to learning more about Lula, and the books is billed as his first major biography. But it’s not really a biography as such, but more an exploration of his early politics and later arrest and imprisonment. There’s no real attempt to chronicle his life as in a conventional cradle-to-grave biography. In fact we’re almost halfway through before the biographical details emerge. The first third or so focuses, in great detail, on his arrest and imprisonment, which coming at the start lacks context. The author assumes too much prior knowledge on the part of the reader. Maybe he’s thinking of his Brazilian readership rather than his international one, but that seems very short-sighted. There’s virtually nothing about Lula’s presidency. Are we supposed to already know about it? There’s lots of name-dropping of people an outside reader won’t recognise, and this becomes tedious. As do the frankly weird chapter titles. So I was left knowing very little more about Lula than I already knew, and left wondering at whom this book was aimed. Certainly not an international readership, it seems to me. I don’t doubt its authenticity as the author had access to Lula and has obviously done his research, but a more accessible and engaging approach would have been welcomed.

[Joao · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s difficult to comprehend why a 1/3 of the book was used to describe Lula’s arrest and the car wash operation. I wish the book had focused more on his life and his political views and also got deeper into his reasonings on becoming a politician, not just not having many working class workers in congress. Also, the timeline of the book was odd, but it didn’t bother me much. The book also didn’t talk about Lula’s period as president, only briefly - maybe if the author had focused more here instead of his arrest time, the book would seem more complete and more like a biography. One last comment is how the author would add his own political opinions on certain characters from the book or certain stories and it clearly showed a bias, which is fine but I wish it was more impartial. I did find it easy to read and with an engaging story that showed me how one of Brazil’s most prominent figure came to be.

[Zachary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ultimately what's compelling here is the subject material. The book's structure is quite bizarre, starting with 100pgs about the 2017 Operation Car Wash law fare against Lula before going back to his union days and then to his childhood through to his congressional victory. We get hardly anything about his presidency let alone the two decade political career that led up to that. Really interesting to learn about Lula, one of the most compelling public figures of the last 50 years, but I wish it was a bit more balanced

[Gabriel Embrey · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book but it’s unfortunately really hard to read. The structure of the biography is hard to follow and the chapter titles are long and confusing. It presumes a great deal of prior knowledge of side of the reader. This makes it kinda a mess, which is unfortunate as I really wanted to read a laudatory Lula biography. Frankly I’m surprised verso released this book as I think it’s clear it could use some rewrites and a good editor.

[Phillip Quinn · Rating 3 out of 5]

As I dip my toes into more political non-fiction, I got excited when the opportunity to read Lula by Fernando Morais came around.

What I’ve known over the years about Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (“Lula”) has been entirely based on what I’ve very briefly read about him but mostly have heard people say about him and his politics. I enjoyed how the book went into his past and what made him the man he is today.

It was very informative as to how events in his life shaped his politics over the years and led us back to his winning the Presidency recently.

That said, this book was strange. The chapter titles felt like they were written by someone just slapping sentence fragments together, because they thought “The longer the better!”

As someone who knew few details of the hullabaloo around Lula’s rise, fall, and rise again, this book did a great job informing me. I would say, however, that the book didn’t deliver in giving me more information on Lula’s time as President.