With an unpublished preface written by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, The Writer Mayor reveals a Graciliano Ramos unknown to the general public: the political Graciliano, dedicated and zealous mayor of Palmeira dos Índios, a small town in the state of Alagoas.
"I avoided getting tangled in spider's webs," Graciliano Ramos wrote in one of his reports to the governor of the state of Alagoas, dated 1929. In "The Writer Mayor: Two Portraits of an Administration ," we get a glimpse of the future writer when he was still a rising politician, mayor of Palmeira dos Índios, a small municipality in the Alagoas hinterland. From January 1928—when he took office—until April 1930, Graciliano led the municipal administration, combating waste, inefficiency, and patrimonialism, eliminating overbilling, completing half-finished projects, and diligently protecting the quality of life of its residents.
The two annual reports he made to the state governor, from 1929 and 1930, are now published for the first time in a separate volume. In them, Graciliano reveals himself to be an exemplary public figure. It is a testament to the attributes every self-respecting politician should possess: a serious approach to the responsibilities that come with the position, an upright and honorable character, and a desire to combat the bad habits that plague our politics.
His annual financial statements were impressive even at the time they were written, circulating beyond the city's borders and reaching other parts of the country. It was thanks to this kind of word of mouth that Graciliano Ramos, the writer, became known. Augusto Frederico Schmidt, the influential Rio de Janeiro businessman, poet, and publisher, immediately recognized that someone capable of writing such sober texts, yet simultaneously endowed with originality and humor, must have a novel in the bag. His intuition proved correct. Thus was born Caetés , which would become the author's first novel.
The Writer Mayor is, therefore, an essential work for those who wish to learn about this other Graciliano and reflect on the ills of our politics. President Lula, in the foreword he wrote for this edition, says: "The Graciliano Ramos that emerges from these pages is the public administrator committed to maintaining fiscal responsibility, but at the same time caring for the entire population, especially the poorest. [...] In other words, Mayor Graciliano Ramos's masterpiece was to put the poor in the budget and the rich in the income tax."
