Lula

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.

Fernando Morais was born in Mariana, Minas Gerais, in 1946. Journalist, he worked for Jornal da Tarde, Veja, and several other Brazilian titles. He received the Esso Award three times and the Abril Journalism Award four times. He was a deputy (1979-1987) and Secretary of Culture (1988-1991) and Secretary of Education (1991-1993) of the State of São Paulo. He is the author of many books including The Last Soldiers of the Cold War: The Story of the Cuban Five from Verso and which was turned into a film for Netflix under the title Wasp Network - Who Were the Cuban Five?

List of Political Party and Public Agency Abbreviations
Map of ABC, São Paulo

1. Sergio Moro orders Lula’s arrest but he decides not to turn himself in to the Federal Police. “They’ll have to come for me”
2. While searching Lula’s home, the Federal Police stick a bug under his couch to secretly record conversations with his wife
3. GloboNews network runs a fake story—“Lula Will Resist Arrest!”—and its ratings rise by 694 percent
4. Emidio learns that the Federal Police had not one but several spies filming everything that happened inside the union hall
5. Aft er 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
6. A hacker named Red opens to the gates of hell and the Supreme Court buries Moro and the Car Wash investigation. Lula steps out of prison as a presidential candidate
7. Jardim Lavinia, April 1980—With the police at the door to arrest him, Lula growls, “I’m sleeping, damn it! They can go fuck themselves!”
8. Navy intelligence intercepts communications from the Curia and reveals that Cardinal Arns asked the German Catholic Church to support the ABC Metalworkers’ strike fund
9. After a cruel childhood in abject poverty, Lula receives the key to paradise: a diploma from SENAI technical school
10. Lula’s fiancée gives an ultimatum: “You have to choose between the union and marriage. You can’t have both”
11. “I know, doctor, my baby was born dead.” “Be strong, Mr. Lula, because the news is worse: Your wife Lourdes died too”
12. During his first visit to a foreign country, Lula rushes home from Tokyo: his brother is being tortured in a DOI-CODI prison
13. After years denigrating the political class, Lula starts building the foundation for the Workers’ Party
14. While Lula faces the police and the bosses in ABC, Brizola tries to resuscitate the PTB party and is blocked by Golbery
15. Lula brings together workers, politicians, intellectuals, and leftist activists to create the Workers’ Party and is arrested two months later
16. In the middle of the night, a polite man in a tie interrogates Lula in a cubicle in DOPS, sent by a general codenamed “the chief”
17. 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

Epilogue

Appendix: An X-ray of the Large Communications Companies’ War against Lula and His Party
Index