Xelís de Toro was born in Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Spain, in 1962. Writing is the backbone of his multifaceted work. From his beginnings in Galicia, he combined a writing career with artistic and cultural activism, publishing magazines, setting up publishing houses and organizing events. He published five novels in Galician, several of which were awarded important literary prizes. His fourth was named best Galician novel of 1999 by a panel of Secondary School representatives. He has published over ten children's books, several of them translated into Catalan and Spanish. These have been taught in schools as well as used in a literacy campaign in the USA for teaching Spanish. He is also an experienced writer of song lyrics and texts for performance art.  

As de Toro has moved further into the performing arts, so his work has begun to transcend written language, whether through acting (with dreamthinkspeak, il pixel rosso, tanglehead productions), as a performer in art galleries, or with his performance poetry/music band laboratoro.