Part memoir, part manifesto, Julian Aguon’s No Country for Eight-Spot Butterflies is a coming-of-age story and a call for justice—for everyone, but in particular, for Indigenous peoples.

With compelling prose and poetry, Aguon weaves together stories from his childhood in the villages of Guam with searing political commentary about matters ranging from nuclear weapons to global warming. Bearing witness and reckoning with the challenge of truth-telling in an era of rampant obfuscation, he culls from his own life experiences—from losing his father to pancreatic cancer to working for Mother Teresa to an edifying chance encounter with Sherman Alexie—to illuminate a collective path out of the darkness.

A powerful, bold, new voice writing at the intersection of Indigenous rights and environmental justice, Julian Aguon is entrenched in the struggles of the people of the Pacific to liberate themselves from colonial rule, defend their sacred sites, and obtain justice for generations of harm. In No Country for Eight-Spot Butterflies, Aguon shares his wisdom and reflections on love, grief, joy, and triumph and extends an offer to join him in a hard-earned hope for a better world.

Julian Aguon is an Indigenous human rights lawyer and writer from Guam. He is the founder of Blue Ocean Law, a progressive firm that works at the intersection of Indigenous rights and environmental justice. He serves on the Global Advisory Council of Progressive International.

About Seattle Arts & Lectures

Seattle Arts & Lectures (SAL) cultivates transformative experiences through story and language with readers and writers of all generations. This event is part of SAL’s three-part Community Curated Series directed in 2022/23 by Sasha LaPointe, the author of Red Paint: The Ancestral Autobiography of a Coast Salish Punk. Learn more about SAL programs here.

Presented by Seattle Arts & Lectures.