{ "id": "ep0yysbvvx", "slug": "martyr-ep0yysbvvx", "title": "Martyr!", "updated": "2026-10-25", "topic_path": [ { "id": "culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture" }, { "id": "culture.literature", "label": "Literature and written works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.literature" }, { "id": "culture.literature.works", "label": "Creative written works and worlds", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.literature.works" }, { "id": "culture.literature.works.works.prose-fiction", "label": "Prose fiction", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.literature.works.works.prose-fiction" }, { "id": "culture.literature.works.works.prose-fiction.national", "label": "Prose works by nation, language, and period", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.literature.works.works.prose-fiction.national" }, { "id": "culture.literature.works.works.prose-fiction.national.novels", "label": "Prose works by nation and language", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.literature.works.works.prose-fiction.national.novels" }, { "id": "culture.literature.works.works.prose-fiction.national.novels.novels-north-america", "label": "American and Canadian novels", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.literature.works.works.prose-fiction.national.novels.novels-north-america" } ], "geo": [ { "id": "geo.us.t2021.culture.literature.works.works.prose-fiction", "label": "United States · 2021 and later: Prose fiction", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t2021.culture.literature.works.works.prose-fiction", "path": [ { "id": "geo.us", "label": "United States", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us" }, { "id": "geo.us.t2021", "label": "United States · 2021 and later", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t2021" }, { "id": "geo.us.t2021.culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t2021.culture" }, { "id": "geo.us.t2021.culture.literature", "label": "Literature and written works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t2021.culture.literature" }, { "id": "geo.us.t2021.culture.literature.works", "label": "Creative written works and worlds", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t2021.culture.literature.works" }, { "id": "geo.us.t2021.culture.literature.works.works.prose-fiction", "label": "Prose fiction", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t2021.culture.literature.works.works.prose-fiction" } ] } ], "excerpt": "Martyr! is Kaveh Akbar's 2024 debut novel (Knopf) about Cyrus Shams, a sobering Iranian American poet seeking meaningful death; not to be confused with Mazen Khaled's 2017 Lebanese film Martyr.", "snippet": "Martyr! is Kaveh Akbar's 2024 debut novel (Knopf) about Cyrus Shams, a sobering Iranian American poet seeking meaningful death; not to be confused with Mazen Khaled's 2017 Lebanese film Martyr.", "node": "culture.literature.works.works.prose-fiction.national.novels.novels-north-america", "markdown": "# Martyr!\n\n**Martyr!** is the debut novel of the Iranian American poet Kaveh Akbar, published by Knopf on January 23, 2024. It follows Cyrus Shams, a newly sober Iranian American poet in his late twenties who, after the deaths of both parents, becomes obsessed with making his death meaningful and begins work on a book about martyrs. The novel was a New York Times bestseller, a [National Book Award](https://www.edgepedia.org/national-book-award) finalist, and one of [Kirkus Reviews](https://www.edgepedia.org/kirkus-reviews)' Best Books of 2024.[1](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/kaveh-akbar/martyr/)\n\n| Key fact | Detail |\n|---|---|\n| Author | Kaveh Akbar, an Iranian American poet and novelist born in Tehran in 1989[2](https://elpais.com/ideas/2025-04-06/y-tu-que-vas-a-hacer-ante-el-terror-antimigratorio-de-trump.html) |\n| Publication | January 23, 2024, Knopf; 352 pages; ISBN 9780593537619[1](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/kaveh-akbar/martyr/) |\n| Protagonist | Cyrus Shams, a poet near 30, born in Iran and raised in small-town Indiana, newly sober after alcoholism and drug addiction[1](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/kaveh-akbar/martyr/) |\n| Central project | The Book of Martyrs, a poetic project about people who gave their lives to something larger than themselves[1](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/kaveh-akbar/martyr/) • [3](https://apnews.com/article/55bb9c26c90af21f293d6fd1066c76be) |\n| Recognition | National Book Award finalist; New York Times bestseller; Kirkus Reviews' Best Books of 2024; Time 100 Must-Read Books of 2024[1](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/kaveh-akbar/martyr/) • [4](https://time.com/7172742/martyr/) |\n| Reader ratings | 4.13 average on Goodreads from 229,985 ratings; 4.31 average on The StoryGraph from about 26,500 reviews[5](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/224147548-martyr) • [6](https://app.thestorygraph.com/book_reviews/f3eeb8ac-3b1e-4423-8113-2f90065c556b?sort=lowest_rated) |\n\n## Plot and characters\n\nCyrus Shams is a child of both the Midwest and the Middle East. When he was an infant, his mother, Roya, was a passenger on a flight over the [Persian Gulf](https://www.edgepedia.org/persian-gulf) that a U.S. missile mistakenly shot down; according to Kirkus, the flight was a domestic one in Iran, while Time places her departure in Tehran on a trip to visit her brother in Dubai.[1](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/kaveh-akbar/martyr/) • [4](https://time.com/7172742/martyr/) His father, Ali, emigrated with Cyrus to small-town Indiana and worked at a poultry factory farm, and has also died by the time the novel opens.[1](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/kaveh-akbar/martyr/) Cyrus has struggled with depression, insomnia, and addiction; the story begins as he is getting sober at age 27.[3](https://apnews.com/article/55bb9c26c90af21f293d6fd1066c76be)\n\n**The Book of Martyrs.** On the cusp of 30 and stuck in his college town, Cyrus conceives a grand poetic project, [The Book of Martyrs](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-book-of-martyrs), which he imagines may be completed by his own death. He tells an interviewer in the novel that he wants to write about \"secular, pacifist martyrs. People who gave their lives to something larger than themselves. No swords in their hands.\"[1](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/kaveh-akbar/martyr/) • [3](https://apnews.com/article/55bb9c26c90af21f293d6fd1066c76be) By chance he discovers online that a terminally ill Iranian American artist, Orkideh, is living out her final days in the [Brooklyn Museum](https://www.edgepedia.org/brooklyn-museum), holding candid conversations with the visitors who line up to see her. Accompanied by Zee, his friend and lover, Cyrus travels from Indiana to New York to visit, consult with, and learn from her.[1](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/kaveh-akbar/martyr/)\n\n## Themes and structure\n\nThe novel is organized around the question of what makes a death, and a life, meaningful. Cyrus is obsessed with seeking meaning primarily in his death but also, by extension, in his life, and he works on the martyrdom book as a way of acting on that obsession.[7](https://www.gradesaver.com/martyr/study-guide/themes) Reviewers describe it as a philosophical discourse inside an addiction narrative wrapped in a quest novel: talky, ambitious, allusive, and deeply meditative.[1](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/kaveh-akbar/martyr/)\n\n**Identity.** Kirkus singles out the treatment of Cyrus's dual identity: he is not depicted as between ethnic or national identities but as inescapably, radically both Persian and American.[1](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/kaveh-akbar/martyr/) Study guides trace this through his reckoning with his family's past and the history of [U.S.-Iran relations](https://www.edgepedia.org/iran-united-states-relations), and note that by the end he accepts that resolving the contradictions between his two sides may not be possible.[7](https://www.gradesaver.com/martyr/study-guide/themes) • [8](https://sufferingrepo.me/LitCharts/Literature%20Guides/Martyr-LitChart.pdf)\n\n**Form.** As a poet, Akbar fills the book with lyrical writing, dream sequences, and non-linear narration, and he references Islamic texts, classical Persian poetry and art, and contemporary Western popular culture.[9](https://www.gradesaver.com/martyr/study-guide/literary-elements) The novel also contains invented conversations with figures including [Lisa Simpson](https://www.edgepedia.org/lisa-simpson) and, in a dialogue with the imagined Beethoven Shams, the basketball player [Kareem Abdul-Jabbar](https://www.edgepedia.org/kareem-abdul-jabbar).[10](https://www.gpb.org/news/2024/01/29/in-martyr-endless-quest-for-purpose-in-world-can-be-cruel-and-uncaring) Critics differ on these devices: Kirkus judges that the occasional flaws, such as big coincidences and forays into other narrators, do not mar the experience, while some reader reviewers found the dream sequences and shifts in point of view distracting.[1](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/kaveh-akbar/martyr/) • [5](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/224147548-martyr)\n\n## Reception\n\nThe novel was named a National Book Award finalist, a New York Times bestseller, and one of Kirkus Reviews' Best Books of 2024, and Time included it among the 100 Must-Read Books of 2024, calling it \"a wrenching story of one man's quest for connection and purpose.\"[1](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/kaveh-akbar/martyr/) • [4](https://time.com/7172742/martyr/) A 2024 Atlantic roundup praised it as a full-throated, complex work that is strangely life-affirming despite being largely about death.[11](https://www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2024/12/best-books-2024-percival-everett-alexei-navalny/680729/) It was also shortlisted for the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize, and Pan Macmillan's UK paperback edition appeared on February 6, 2025 under the Picador imprint.[12](https://www.supersummary.com/martyr/summary/) • [13](https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/kaveh-akbar/martyr/9781035026081) On Goodreads it holds a 4.13 average from 229,985 ratings.[5](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/224147548-martyr)\n\n## The author\n\nKaveh Akbar was born in Tehran, Iran in 1989 and lives in Iowa. Before this novel he was known as a poet: his first full-length collection, *Calling a Wolf a Wolf*, was published in 2017, and his poems have appeared in [The New Yorker](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-new-yorker), The New York Times, and the Paris Review.[2](https://elpais.com/ideas/2025-04-06/y-tu-que-vas-a-hacer-ante-el-terror-antimigratorio-de-trump.html) • [5](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/224147548-martyr) • [10](https://www.gpb.org/news/2024/01/29/in-martyr-endless-quest-for-purpose-in-world-can-be-cruel-and-uncaring) He has received fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the [Poetry Foundation](https://www.edgepedia.org/poetry-foundation), among other honors.[14](https://www.palatinelibrary.org/sites/default/files/2025-10/Martyr%21%20Book%20Discussion%20Kit%20.pdf) Reviewers note that threads of Akbar's own life run through the novel, including the Iranian American experience, recovery from addiction, and the place of poetry in these struggles.[12](https://www.supersummary.com/martyr/summary/)\n\n## Other works called Martyr\n\nThe title is also carried by *Martyr*, a 2017 [Lebanese drama](https://www.edgepedia.org/lebanese-drama) directed by Mazen Khaled, in which the death of a young man named Hassane at a Beirut waterfront exposes a city's schisms and society's fault lines. The 84-minute film, in Arabic, received a 70% Tomatometer score on Rotten Tomatoes and a [Venice Film Festival](https://www.edgepedia.org/venice-film-festival) nomination.[15](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/martyr_2017) • [16](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/martyr/) • [17](https://chlotrudis.org/review/martyr/)\n\n## References\n\n1. [MARTYR! by Kaveh Akbar, Kirkus Reviews](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/kaveh-akbar/martyr/)\n2. [¿Y tú qué vas a hacer ante el terror antimigratorio de Trump?](https://elpais.com/ideas/2025-04-06/y-tu-que-vas-a-hacer-ante-el-terror-antimigratorio-de-trump.html)\n3. [Book Review: Iranian-born Kaveh Akbar pens an unforgettable portrait of the poet as a young man, AP News](https://apnews.com/article/55bb9c26c90af21f293d6fd1066c76be)\n4. [Martyr!: 100 Must-Read Books of 2024, Time](https://time.com/7172742/martyr/)\n5. [Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar, Goodreads](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/224147548-martyr)\n6. [Reviews – Martyr!, The StoryGraph](https://app.thestorygraph.com/book_reviews/f3eeb8ac-3b1e-4423-8113-2f90065c556b?sort=lowest_rated)\n7. [Martyr! Themes, GradeSaver](https://www.gradesaver.com/martyr/study-guide/themes)\n8. [Martyr! LitChart, LitCharts](https://sufferingrepo.me/LitCharts/Literature%20Guides/Martyr-LitChart.pdf)\n9. [Martyr! Literary Elements, GradeSaver](https://www.gradesaver.com/martyr/study-guide/literary-elements)\n10. [In 'Martyr!,' an endless quest for purpose in a world that can be cruel and uncaring, Georgia Public Broadcasting](https://www.gpb.org/news/2024/01/29/in-martyr-endless-quest-for-purpose-in-world-can-be-cruel-and-uncaring)\n11. [The Atlantic 10: Best Books of 2024, The Atlantic](https://www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2024/12/best-books-2024-percival-everett-alexei-navalny/680729/)\n12. [Martyr! Summary and Study Guide, SuperSummary](https://www.supersummary.com/martyr/summary/)\n13. [Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar, Pan Macmillan](https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/kaveh-akbar/martyr/9781035026081)\n14. [Martyr! Book Discussion Kit, Palatine Library](https://www.palatinelibrary.org/sites/default/files/2025-10/Martyr%21%20Book%20Discussion%20Kit%20.pdf)\n15. [Martyr (2017), Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/martyr_2017)\n16. [Martyr Reviews, Metacritic](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/martyr/)\n17. [Martyr, Chlotrudis Society for Independent Film](https://chlotrudis.org/review/martyr/)\n\n---\n*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Literature and written works › Creative written works and worlds › Prose fiction › Prose works by nation, language, and period › Prose works by nation and language › American and Canadian novels*\n\n*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*\n\n*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*\n\nLicense: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license\n", "same_as": [], "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/martyr-ep0yysbvvx", "markdown_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/martyr-ep0yysbvvx.md", "license": { "name": "Edgepedia Community License 1.0", "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license", "summary": "Free with credit, commercial use included. AI training is open to everyone. For other uses, organizations over USD 100M in revenue or 100M monthly users license separately.", "spdx": "LicenseRef-Edgepedia-Community-1.0" }, "credit": "\"Martyr!\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/martyr-ep0yysbvvx. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "credit_md": "\"[Martyr!](https://www.edgepedia.org/martyr-ep0yysbvvx)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), [https://www.edgepedia.org/martyr-ep0yysbvvx](https://www.edgepedia.org/martyr-ep0yysbvvx). [Edgepedia Community License 1.0](https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license).", "credit_html": "\"Martyr!\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/martyr-ep0yysbvvx. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "speakable": "Martyr! is Kaveh Akbar's 2024 debut novel about Cyrus Shams, a sobering Iranian American poet seeking meaningful death; not to be confused with Mazen Khaled's 2017 Lebanese film Martyr." }