Martyr!

By (author) Akbar, Kaveh
Short description/annotation:
The instant New York Times bestseller: a young man uncovers the truth behind his mother’s death in this transcendental debut that takes the reader from New York to Tehran.
Description:

A young man uncovers the truth behind his mother’s death in this haunting debut that takes you from New York to Tehran.

''Profoundly moving'' Elif Shafak
''Dazzling'' Ann Patchett
‘Gorgeous’ Tommy Orange
‘Radiant’ Lauren Groff
‘Stunning’ John Green
‘Miraculous'' The New York Times
‘Sensational’ Daily Mail
‘Kaleidoscopic’ The 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 and funny, Kaveh Akbar''s Martyr! is an all-consuming debut.

An instant New York Times Bestseller
Shortlisted for the Waterstones Debut Prize
Book of the Year in The Observer, The New York Times, and The New Yorker
A National Book Award Finalist

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

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I will carry this story, and the people in it, with me for the rest of my life.
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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
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Playful, soulful, kaleidoscopic, honest and profoundly moving
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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.
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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.
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Kaveh Akbar renders the full spectrum of life, and death, with great beauty and care
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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.
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Martyr! is an astounding debut . . . It feels like holding magic in your hands
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A kaleidoscopic debut… a novel that comes at you from every conceivable direction
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I haven''t stopped thinking about it. Sensational.
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It''s so, so incredible
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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
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A brilliant debut . . . simultaneously funny and piercing . . . Akbar writes beautifully
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Akbar is a black-belt storyteller, and MARTYR! is a page-turner I couldn’t put down. Buy this book!
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Akbar’s debut is full of love, fury, humour and wisdom.