Rosalía de Castro was born on 23 February 1837 in Conxo, Santiago de Compostela, a Spanish citizen who would go on to work across several literary forms. She was a poet, a novelist, and a short story writer, and her career drew on two languages — Galician and Spanish — throughout her working life.

Her output was substantial and varied. Among her notable works are Cantares gallegos and Follas novas, both written in Galician, as well as La flor and Lieders. She also produced prose fiction, including the novel O cabaleiro das botas azuis and the short story collection Contos da miña terra. Her Spanish-language poetry collection En las orillas del Sar added another dimension to a body of work that ranged across lyric verse and narrative fiction. She was associated with the Rexurdimento movement, which shaped the context in which much of her Galician-language writing appeared.

Writing in both Galician and Spanish gave her work a dual character that ran through her career. Her poetry collections in Galician and her Spanish-language verse sat alongside her prose works, and together they reflect the range of forms she worked in. The Rexurdimento association placed her within a broader cultural moment, one that her Galician-language writing was part of, even as she continued to produce work in Spanish as well.

Rosalía de Castro died on 22 July 1885 in A Matanza, forty-eight years after her birth in Santiago de Compostela. The works she left behind span poetry, novels, and short stories in two languages, from early pieces like La flor to the Spanish-language En las orillas del Sar, and stand as the record of a writing life that moved steadily between Galician and Spanish literary expression.