Not all hurry leads to hastiness. Not all slowness is synonymous with tardiness. Because of all the hustle and bustle, sometimes we pass through life without even looking it in the face. And sometimes if we don’t hurry we let life pass by, and we get stuck on the treadmill, among abandoned dreams, renounced potential, desires swallowed by time. It’s what Ana Cristina Leonardos and Martha Estima Scodro show with great sensitivity in Festina Lente — Make Haste Slowly. More than crafting a beautiful study of the female soul, Martha and Ana Cristina reveal here that which is most human on the surface of finiteness, in the construction of identities, and in the transience of feelings. With provocations that generate conversations, and conversations that generate still more provocations, Ana Cristina and Martha invite their interviewees to dive into a delicate process of intimate excavation, and they inquire of them: “What is the most important question you have asked yourself over the last year, and why is it important?”. Inspired by this and other doubts of growing importance, the authors move through desires, fears, guilt, and obligations that fill the thoughts of these women. Thus, Ana Cristina Leonardos and Martha Estima Scodro have written a book that is critically urgent, and they open windows that give us glimpses of amazing discoveries, dormant vigor, unspeakable losses, delays transformed into steps, and invitations to soar amongst our widest horizons within. Márcio Vassallo