Sitting on a stool in a single spotlight, Atan bends over his guitar and peers into the dark. “They say I was born tired, with a heavy stride, and the memories of an old man’s life blazing in my eyes,” he sings.

Named after an Inuit shaman who dies on the night of his birth, the white boy Atan finds himself yoked to a primal wisdom he does not understand and burdened with a struggle against the powers of his day he never asked for. Emerging as a singer-songwriter of the new millennium and a reluctant hero of the counter-culture, Atan draws the ire of wealthy men who would like to see him take his place among history’s fallen agitators for love.

After eluding an assassin’s bullet, he is elevated to the stature of a saint, and when he is targeted by the FBI and flees abroad, his allure only grows. Now, in 2042, Atan has come to Washington, DC—smuggled into a city under martial law in a nation on the verge of collapse—where he hides in a safe house, waiting for the revolution.

“A speculative dystopian tale written in an engaging literary style, Atan the Revolutionary could become a classic. A revolution needs a cultural leader, not a political one.

Lewis might be him. ” ~ V.

N. Alexander, author of Locus Amoenus“Atan the Revolutionary is a masterful and engaging story about getting back to our roots—a way of being in the world that revels in the beauty, adventure, and interconnectedness that life is meant to provide.

Such a literary undertaking testifies to the author’s many years of radical reflection and passionate activism. His main character, Atan, struggles with the dynamics of two worldviews, as do many Indigenous leaders today.

Atan, the way that Lewis presents him, could be any one of us who has glimpsed truth and magic amidst the systems that stifle both. Young and old alike will want to resist pausing to reflect but will be unable to do so.

” ~ Four Arrows (aka Don Trent Jacobs), co-author of Restoring the Kinship Worldview: Indigenous Voices Introduce 28 Precepts for Balancing Life on Planet Earth. .