FOREWORD
|| by João Ubaldo Ribeiro

Contrary to what one might think, the discovery of a young talent is one of the greatest pleasures available to a writer. No envy is involved here, just genuine pride and happiness at the chance to display sincere enthusiasm. Like so many other words, “talent” has suffered much abuse, and has been so irresponsibly bandied around that it runs the risk of losing all impact. I use it parsimoniously, and so I can fairly say that Rodrigo Lacerda has a great deal of talent. The Mystery of the Rampant Lion is an extraordinary exercise in literary sensitivity, and its author’s control over his prose is of a rare order. We have, unfortunately, been used to regarding literature as the climbing of intellectual mountains, suffering to be undergone in the name of supposed cultural increment. But this young man – I nearly wrote boy – has an instinct for the ground he treads; he is a born soul mate of those who have written and do write good prose, part of a lineage that he will not increase and grow only if he wishes not to. This is not something one learns in school; it comes from a mysterious kinship with the great prose writers, from something that escapes rigorous description. I do not wish to exaggerate, though it is a temptation; I am sure, however, that Rodrigo Lacerda will be whatever he wishes in the world of letters; his love for words, his sense of action, his delight in description and characterization, his intimacy with his chosen material, his precocious (let us say) professionalism, will take him wherever he wishes to go. This Elizabethan story, this superior literary game, merits our attention. It needs no recommendation from me, nor did he ask for one; as this is his first published work, it was thought necessary. So here is my recommendation. But I repeat: I am adding nothing to his existing talent. It is ready, finished, polished, the moving erudition of a writer who, for me, hardly out of his nappies, is a writer indeed. God bless him.

João Ubaldo Ribeiro is a member of The Brazilian Academy of Letters.
Book published in the US:
An Invincible Memory, Harpercollins
Sergeant Getulio, Houghton & Mifflin Co.
The Lizard’s Smile, Scribner