At the age of eight, I got my first job in homes, the first in a long series... I would say that my relationship with literature began in the kitchens of the rich.” This is how Conceição Evaristo speaks about her childhood, proud of her past and her journey, overcoming the hardships and difficulties faced by a poor girl like herself, born in a favela, the Brazilian shantytowns. In this wonderful novel, Evaristo takes us back to the environment in which she grew up, to favela life, out of a desire to “record what she experienced and preserve the fleeting forever.” She writes with a heart full of love and compassion for these marginalized people: “I write. I bear witness. I write in celebration of the men, women, and children who have accumulated inside me, just as the huts of the favela where I lived accumulated.” She writes about poverty, injustice, and misery, but also about the courage, solidarity, and harmonious coexistence that stand in the face of extreme poverty and exclusion, and give the individual hope, a hope that never left Evaristo for a single moment in her life: “Driven by a stubborn hope and a precocious knowledge, the little girl I was knew that life could not be reduced to the few things it gave us.” This novel will resonate in our souls for a long time, and the story of Conceição Evaristo will remain an example for every person who aspires to overcome the circumstances of his life, no matter how difficult and harsh.