Brandão eventually abandoned his career as a journalist and devoted himself to his fiction, though his novels and short stories retain a journalistic feel, revealing the author's analytical mind and stylistic irreverence, which often extends to graphic layouts emulating newspapers. Both books portray the social and psychological crises of 1960s Brazil, resulting from political oppression and economic unrest. His first book, Depois do sol (1965, After the Sun), a collection of short stories, was followed by Bebel que a cidade comeu (1968, Bebel, Swallowed Up by the City). Being a reporter, Brandão had firsthand knowledge of the turbulence of the metropolis, intensified by a period of extreme violence between police and militants following the coup. The peculiarities and problems of urban life made a profound impression on him, and for the next eight years he witnessed the people's increasing mistrust in the government, and the resulting turmoil that led to a military coup in 1964. Soon after his twenty-first birthday, he moved to the state capital, where he became a journalist. Brandão's writing career began at the age of sixteen, when he was a movie reviewer for a newspaper in Araraquara, his hometown, in the hinterland of the state of São Paulo.
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