Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar

Discover the life-affirming debut novel from acclaimed poet Kaveh Akbar: a love letter to the world and our search for meaning - in faith, art, ourselves and those we care for. A Book of the Year in The Observer, The New York Times, TIME, Vanity Fair, The Atlantic and The New Yorker, and shorlisted for the Waterstones Debut Prize for Fiction.
 
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?
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'I will carry this story, and the people in it, with me for the rest of my life.' - John Green
 
'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
 
'Kaveh Akbar renders the full spectrum of life, and death, with great beauty and care.' - Raven Leilani