Brooklyn Reads: No Country for Eight-Spot Butterflies with Julian Aguon

Join Julian Aguon, a Chamorro human rights lawyer and defender from Guam, for the New York launch of his new memoir, No Country for Eight-Spot Butterflies. With an introduction by writer Arundhati Roy, this expansive collection of essays is at once a coming-of-age story drawn from the author’s life in Guam and a call for justice for Indigenous people everywhere. As the founder of Blue Ocean Law, a progressive firm centering Indigenous rights and environmental justice, Aguon offers reflections on love, grief, resilience, and hope for a better world.

The program begins with an excerpt reading of No Country for Eight-Spot Butterflies, followed by a conversation between the author and V (formerly known as Eve Ensler), a Tony Award–winning playwright, activist, and performer and the author of the Obie Award–winning Vagina Monologues. Their dialogue will be set against projections of paintings by Gisela McDaniel—a diasporic Chamorro artist whose assemblages, combining audio, oil painting, and motion-sensored technology, explore healing of survivors of sexual trauma. The program culminates with an audience Q&A and a book signing.

Masks are required in the Auditorium and will be available upon arrival.

Tickets are free with purchase of the book ($23). Members receive a 10% discount. Not a member? Join today!

This program will include ASL interpretation. For access needs, please email us at access@brooklynmuseum.org.