Carmen Conde was born in 1907 in Cartagena (Murcia) where, with the exception of seven years in Melilla, she lived until 1936. At the end of the Spanish Civil War she moved to Madrid. For many years she was a professor of Spanish Poetry and Contemporary Spanish Novel at the Institute of European Studies (an affiliate of the University of Chicago) in Madrid. Also a professor of the University of Valencia. She has been awarded the following literary prizes: Elisenda Moncada, Internacional de Poesía, Premio Nacional de Poesía Española and the Premio de Novela Ateneo de Sevilla /1980). In 1978 was elected chair of the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language, the first woman ever inducted as a member. She gave her inaugural speech to the Academy on January 29, 1979. She died in Madrid in 1996.

This book is a bilingual collections of poems of Carmen Conde in Spanish and translated to English. Editions and translation by Alexis Levitin and José R. De Armas with preface by Concha Zardoya and the Nobel Prize Winner, Vicente Aleixandre.