Martyr!

Martyr! is a 2024 literary fiction novel by Kaveh Akbar that follows Cyrus Shams, a first-generation Iranian American and poet who is recovering from alcoholism and reckoning with the senseless murder of his mother, Roya, at the hands of the United States government. Akbar is an Iranian American poet who has worked in editing, film, and advocacy. In 2024, he was named a finalist for the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize for Martyr! Through Cyrus’s story, Akbar follows threads of his own life, including the Iranian American experience, recovery from addiction, and poetry’s place within these struggles.

This guide refers to the 2024 Kindle edition of the text, published by Knopf.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide include discussions of alcoholism and addiction, suicidal ideation, political violence, terminal illness, death, and racism.

Plot Summary

Cyrus Shams was born in 1987 in Tehran, Iran, the son of Roya and Ali Shams. Less than a year later, the bombing of Iran Air Flight 655 killed his mother, who was traveling to visit her brother Arash, a veteran of the Iran-Iraq War. Cyrus and Ali moved to the United States shortly afterward. Ali got a job at a chicken factory in Indiana.