Kaveh Akbar · Picador India · Paperback
A New York Times and TIME Best Book of the Year · On Barack Obama's Reading List 2024
Cyrus Shams is lost.
His mother was killed when her plane was senselessly shot down over the Persian Gulf while he was still a baby, and Cyrus has been wrestling with her death ever since. Now newly sober, he sets out to discover the truth about her life.
A meeting with a dying artist draws him towards the mysteries of his past — an uncle who rode across Iranian battlefields dressed as the Angel of Death, a haunting painting by an exiled artist — and back into the story of a mother who may not have been who, or what, she seemed. As Cyrus pieces together meaning from the scattered clues of his life, one final revelation changes everything he thought he knew.
Electrifying, funny, wholly original and profound, Martyr! announces a blazing and essential new voice in contemporary fiction.
Praise
'Both a riveting character study and piercing family saga … nothing short of miraculous' — New York Times
'Almost violently artful … in command of a dazzling spectrum of frequencies from comedic to tragic' — New Yorker
'A literary gem' — Observer
'Elegant, dizzying, playful' — Lauren Groff
'I haven't loved a book this much in years' — Tommy Orange
'I kept forgetting to breathe' — John Green
'Dazzling … among the best novels to have come out this year' — New Indian Express
'If you are lost, this book might save you' — The Hindu
About the author
Kaveh Akbar is an Iranian-American poet and novelist. Martyr! is his first novel.
Edition details
Picador India (Pan Macmillan India) paperback · ISBN 9789361130649
Note: Deals with grief, addiction and recovery, and death.
