Description
Shortlisted for the Waterstones Debut Prize for Fiction 2024
Named a best book of 2024 by THE NEW YORK TIMES, Amazon, CBS and TIME
'This book vibrates with love of life, beauty and language. I'm in awe'
Natalie Portman
'Smart, dazzling, different . . . This book is thrilling.'
Ann Patchett, author of Tom Lake
'I haven't stopped thinking about it. Sensational.'
Daily Mail
'Nothing short of miraculous'
Junot Diaz, New York Times
'A kaleidoscopic debut'
Guardian
'A literary gem . . . Martyr! invites you to read with a highlighter in hand'
Observer
'Elegant, dizzying, playful.'
Lauren Groff, author of Matrix
'Martyr! is an astounding debut'
The Irish Times
'Brilliant'
LA TIimes
'Reading Martyr! Is a delight'
The Washington Post
Cyrus Shams has always been lost. He's grown up tangled in the mysteries of his past - an uncle who rode through Iranian battlefields, a haunting work of art by an exiled painter, and his mother, whose plane was shot down over the Persian Gulf when he was just a baby. Now, newly sober and maybe in love, he's headed for an encounter that will transform everything he thought he knew. Can a final revelation change the truth of Cyrus's life?
* Martyr! was an instant New York Times bestseller w/c 27/1/24
Debut novel from a celebrated, prize-winning poet: a young man uncovers the truth behind his mother's death in this transcendental debut that takes the reader from New York to Tehran and heralds the arrival of a blazing and essential new voice
About the Author
Kaveh Akbar has been awarded multiple Pushcart Prizes for his poetry, and his collection Pilgrim Bell was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Poetry. He is a recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship, and his work has been featured in The New Yorker and The Paris Review, on BBC Radio 4's Start The Week and Front Row, on The New Yorker's Radio Hour, and in The Kindergarten Teacher starring Maggie Gyllenhaal. His debut novel Martyr! was a New York Times bestseller and a most anticipated book in 2024 for Time, Nylon, Oprah, Marie Claire and CNN. Born in Tehran, he lives in Iowa.
Reviews
I will carry this story, and the people in it, with me for the rest of my life. -- John Green, author of The Fault in Our Stars
Smart, dazzling, different... a novel of depth and complexity, tragedy and humour . . . This book is thrilling. There's no other word for it. It's like watching the novel itself be reinvented -- Ann Patchett, author of Tom Lake
Kaveh Akbar is a radiant soul, a poet so agile and largehearted it comes as no surprise that his first leap into fiction is elegant, dizzying, playful. -- Lauren Groff, author of The Matrix
In Cyrus, Akbar has created an indelible protagonist, haunted, searching, utterly magnetic. But it speaks to Akbar's storytelling gifts that Martyr! is both a riveting character study and piercing family saga . . . what Akbar pulls off in Martyr! is nothing short of miraculous. * The New York Times *
Kaveh Akbar renders the full spectrum of life, and death, with great beauty and care -- Raven Leilani, author of Luster
An absolute jewel of a novel. A diamond. I haven't loved a book this much in years. Kaveh's writing is so thoroughly powerful and gorgeous you can feel it from where dreams come . . . This book does everything. -- Tommy Orange, author of There, There
Martyr! is an astounding debut . . . It feels like holding magic in your hands -- Aimee Walsh, The Irish Times
It's so, so incredible -- Kaia Gerber
I haven't stopped thinking about it. Sensational. * Daily Mail *
A kaleidoscopic debut . . . a novel that comes at you from every conceivable direction * Guardian *
Martyr! will stay in my soul for good-a fever dream, a reckoning, a heartbreak, a shattering and mending, a delight-its double-helix of dreams and conversation now part of my own DNA -- Leslie Jamison, author of The Empathy Exams
A brilliant debut... simultaneously funny and piercing... Akbar writes beautifully * LA Times *
Akbar is a black-belt storyteller, and MARTYR! is a page-turner I couldn't put down. Buy this book! -- Mary Karr, author of The Liars' Club
Akbar's debut is full of love, fury, humour and wisdom. Protagonist Cyrus Shams... is coming straight for your heart * People *
I laughed out loud * NPR *
I can't remember the last time a book made me feel like this. Martyr! is simply extraordinary. Kaveh Akbar has written a novel that will stay with me forever. -- Clint Smith, author of How the Word Is Passed
Brilliant * Los Angeles Times *
Reading Martyr! is a delight * The Washington Post *
Stuffed with ideas, gorgeous images, and a surprising amount of humor ... The serious fiction lover's favorite kind of book, offering plenty to think about and discuss, all of it couched in brilliantly rendered prose that's a pleasure to read. Let's hope that Kaveh Akbar's impressive debut is the first of many novels to come. * The Boston Globe *
Deep-feeling, beautifully bruised ... A darkly comic and heartrendingly earnest work * The San Francisco Chronicle *
A unique delight. It is insightful and clever while also being unafraid to poke fun at itself . . . this is a singular work that introduces Akbar as an audacious and original contemporary storyteller * The Sydney Morning Herald *
A literary gem . . . Martyr! invites you to read with a highlighter in hand * Observer *
One of the many glories of MARTYR!, a first novel by the poet Kaveh Akbar, is its entirely original voice: half wised-up dude-speak, half soaring lyricism. This is a major novel that, like all major novels, doesn't quite resemble anything else you've read. -- Michael Cunningham, author of Day
Book Information
ISBN 9781035026067
Author Kaveh Akbar
Format Hardback
Page Count 352
Imprint Picador
Publisher Pan Macmillan
Weight(grams) 450g
Dimensions(mm) 222mm * 144mm * 30mm
