Martyr! (Paperback)

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

Playful, soulful, kaleidoscopic, honest and profoundly moving - Elif Shafak, author of There Are Rivers in the Sky

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

A kaleidoscopic debut… a novel that comes at you from every conceivable direction - Guardian

I haven't stopped thinking about it. Sensational. - Daily Mail

It's so, so incredible - Kaia Gerber

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

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