‘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 StarsAN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
SHORTLISTED FOR WATERSTONES DEBUT FICTION PRIZE 2024
A NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST 2024
ON BARACK OBAMA'S SUMMER READING LIST 2024

'Smart, dazzling, different . . . This book is thrilling.'
Ann Patchett, author of Tom Lake

'An absolute jewel of a novel'
Tommy Orange, Booker-longlisted author of Wandering Stars

'A kaleidoscopic debut'
Guardian

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?

Electrifying, funny, and all-consuming, Kaveh Akbar's Martyr! is a masterpiece.

* Martyr! was an instant New York Times bestseller w/c 27/1/24