Martyr!

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

Bloody marvellous . . . one of the best novels I’ve read in a while

Andrea Wulf