The Georgetown Americas Institute is pleased to host a presentation of the book Lula!: The Man, The Myth and a Dream of Latin America (Bloomsbury, 2026) with author Richard Lapper. Drawing on decades of on-the-ground reporting, the book offers an account of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, one of the most consequential political figures of the modern era. Imprisoned in the notorious "Car Wash" corruption scandal, Lula returned to win the 2022 presidential election against far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro—only to face a new rematch, this time against Bolsonaro's son Flavio, in Brazil's upcoming October 2026 elections. With that vote approaching, Lapper—author also of Beef, Bible and Bullets: Brazil in the Age of Bolsonaro (2021)—is uniquely positioned to illuminate both sides of Brazil's political divide. Join us for a conversation between Richard Lapper and Georgetown University Professor Michael Shifter on the book's themes, the enduring forces shaping Brazilian politics, and what the 2026 election may hold for Latin America's largest nation.
Featuring
Richard Lapper is an independent journalist and consultant. He worked at the Financial Times (FT) between 1990 and 2015. He was the newspaper’s Latin America editor between 1998 and 2008, headed up the FT’s investment research service on Latin America from 2010 until 2015, and led the entire emerging market research service between 2014 and 2015. Lapper was also Southern Africa bureau chief (2008 to 2010), capital markets editor (1994 to 1997), and financial news editor (1997 to 1998). Lapper began his journalistic career with the London-based Latin America Newsletter in 1980. He spent two years covering Central America between 1981 and 1982 and visited the region frequently in a freelance capacity during the rest of that decade.
Michael Shifter is an adjunct professor at the Center for Latin American Studies at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, where he has taught Latin American politics since 1993. He is the former president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a leading policy forum on Western Hemisphere affairs based in Washington, DC. Shifter writes and comments regularly on U.S.-Latin American relations and hemispheric issues. His articles have been published widely, including in the New York Times, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Financial Times, Current History, Americas Quarterly, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, Journal of Democracy, Politico, and Harvard International Review, as well as in leading newspapers and journals in Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Latin American Studies Association and is a contributing editor of Current History. Shifter graduated Phi Beta Kappa and Summa Cum Laude from Oberlin College and holds a M.A. in sociology from Harvard University, where he taught Latin American development and politics for four years.