From the publication of her first novel Hérémakhonon in 1976, critics have sought to establish autobiographical ties between Maryse Condé's life and her fictional works. Attempts to draw the Guadeloupean author to comment on such ties recur throughout her substantial body of published interviews, and Françoise Pfaff's opening question in Entretiens avec Maryse Condé homes in on childhood: ‘Vue de façon positive et négative, l'enfance est un thème important dans tes oeuvres. Est–ce que tu peux nous parler de ton enfance en Guadeloupe?’ At this, Condé protests that her childhood ‘n’était pas intéressant du tout’. Nonetheless, in 1999, over two decades after Hérémakhonon appeared, Condé's decision to focus on childhood in Le Coeur à rire et à pleurer: contes vrais de mon enfance demonstrates that her early years do indeed provide rich material for literary exploration. The critic Leah Hewitt has suggested that Le Coeur and Hérémakhonon depict different stages in Condé's life:

The author has long endured questions about links between her fiction and her life. By fictionalizing a series of autobiographical events in Le Coeur, Condé responds to her critics through her medium of choice, moving their speculative attempts at dissecting her past firmly back into the literary domain.

Le Coeur was published when Condé was in her sixties, making her the oldest author of a récit d'enfance to be considered in this study. She was born in Guadeloupe in 1934, although the text does not include this information and provides few precise temporal indicators throughout. The text is characterized by a succinct, measured prose style which, despite comic interludes, tends towards melancholia. Although the possessive article in the subtitle contes vrais de mon enfance appears to forge an authoritative link between author and text, Le Coeur is nonetheless characterized by a questioning, searching tone.