Martyr!

Dark, mischievous and full of verve, Akbar's electrifying debut follows a newly sober poet adrift in the American Midwest, trying to come to terms with his mother's tragic death decades prior, as the mystery of who she really was begins to unravel.

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.

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 The Island of Missing Trees.