José Santos Chocano Gastañodi (May 14, 1875 – December 13, 1934), more commonly known by his pseudonym "El Cantor de América" (Spanish pronunciation: [tʃoˈkano]), was a Peruvian poet, writer and diplomat, whose work was widely praised across Europe and Latin America.

He claimed to have rediscovered Latin America through verse in his 1906 collection Alma América, which carried an introduction by the distinguished philosopher-poet Miguel de Unamuno.

This allowed Chocano to interact with prominent Spanish and Latin American intellectuals and artist such as Juan Gris, who become known by this pseudonym by signing the illustrations that he created for Chocano's book entitled Alma América and Poemas Indoespañoles (Soul America: Indo-Spanish poems) in 1906;[2] Miguel de Unamuno, who wrote the prologue for Alma América; Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo; and Rubén Darío; and thus his name reached a prominent status not only in Spain, but in France and all over Latin America.

He worked for different regimes and traveled a decade and a half through Latin and Central America, where he befriended a variety of political figures from different points on the ideological spectrum, such as Pancho Villa in Mexico, Manuel Estrada Cabrera in Guatemala, and Woodrow Wilson in the USA, with whom he struck up a correspondence.

[3] After the coup which deposed Estrada Cabrera in 1920, Chocano was briefly imprisoned, and subsequently returned to Peru, where he became associated with President Augusto B. Leguía.