The University of Houston-Victoria Downtown Arts Series will welcome a poet from Ecuador and his translator at a special event Friday evening.

Santiago Vizcaino

Santiago Vizcaino and Alexis Levitin will give a reading at 7 p.m. inside the UHV Center for the Arts, 204 N. Main St. The event, sponsored by the UHV School of Arts & Sciences, is free and open to the public.

Vizcaino’s poetry is dark and apocalyptic, similar to the style of Pablo Neruda, a famous Chilean poet and politician who won a Nobel Prize in Literature. Vizcaino will read his poem in Spanish, and then Levitin will read the same poem in English.

“This will be the first bilingual reading we’ve had at UHV,” said Jeffrey Di Leo, dean of the UHV School of Arts & Sciences. “I had the pleasure of listening to a recent reading by Mr. Vizcaino. He presented several beautiful short poems. I’m delighted he has agreed to stop in Victoria to share his work with our community.”

Jeffrey Di Leo

Vizcaino’s first book, “Destruction in the Afternoon,” received the National Prize for Literature in 2008 from the Ecuador Ministry of Culture. His first book of short stories, “To Kill Mother,” was published in 2012 in Buenos Aires. Vizcaino’s poems have appeared in 16 U.S. literary magazines.

Levitin’s translations have been published in more than 200 magazines, and he has translated numerous books. His translation of “Destruction in the Afternoon” came out in March.

The UHV Downtown Arts Series presents an array of groundbreaking art practices to the Victoria community and encourages discussion about the arts. The series concludes for the school year on April 24 with a presentation by Samuel Ace, a photographer, painter, filmmaker and poet.

For more information, contact the UHV School of Arts & Sciences at 361-570-4201.