Elena Fortún (Madrid, 1886-1952) begins this epistolary in 1947 by congratulating the young writer Carmen Laforet (Barcelona 1921-Madrid 2004), recent winner of the Nadal Prize, who in turn shows her admiration for the creator of the character of Celia who had inspired her so much.

In De corazón y alma we meet two exceptional writers, each one a pioneer in her generation, defenders of the freedom of the individual to be and to feel; Elena, at death's door, and Carmen, in the brilliance of her literary career, urged by success and the need for inner recollection. This is a revealing book like few others, an intermix of letters brimming with depth and truth and that take us from life to death, from doubt to certainty, from joy to sadness and from literature to life.

Cristina Cerezales and Silvia Cerezales, daughters of Carmen Laforet and both writers, describe in their respective prologues the extraordinary value that these letters had for their mother, who crossed paths with the journalist and writer Elena Fortún until her death after a long illness, and the importance that this author's stories had in their lives.

Nuria Capdevila-Argüelles, associate professor of Hispanic Studies and Gender Studies at the University of Exeter (Great Britain), has dedicated several of her studies to the figure of Elena Fortún. Together with María Jesús Fraga, she was responsible for the selection of the texts by Elena Fortún and Matilde Ras gathered in the anthology El camino es nuestro (Colección Obra Fundamental, 2014).