Martyr!
by Kaveh Akbar
Cyrus Shams is lost. Newly sober and still grappling with his mother's death when her plane was shot down over the Persian Gulf, he sets out to learn the truth of her life.
Best for: Readers who like inventive, emotional literary novels.
Martyr! is #26 on BookWard's Rising chart for October 2026: the hottest new books published in the past two years.
What Martyr! is about
Cyrus is a queer poet in Indiana, newly sober after years of struggling with alcohol and drugs. His father, Ali, once worked on a chicken farm after leaving Iran and has since died. Cyrus has always believed his mother, Roya, was killed on Iran Air Flight 655, brought down by a U.S. Navy missile near the close of the Iran–Iraq War. Haunted by that loss, he begins a 'book of martyrs' and wonders whether his own death might mean something.
His search takes him to New York, to Orkideh, an Iranian performance artist with terminal cancer who is spending her final days in a Brooklyn Museum installation. His roommate Zee, who cares for him deeply, comes along, though the two often clash. The story slips between eras and voices, including Roya's hidden love and an uncle's strange wartime duty. Lyrical, darkly funny and reflective, it explores grief, addiction, family history and what a life can mean.
The author, Kaveh Akbar, is a poet, and this was his first novel. It reached the New York Times bestseller list.
Why Martyr! is on the Rising chart
Its Wikipedia page had 13,415 views last month. The Rising score blends six public signals, each scored from 0 to 100 against the other new books and weighted as shown.
| Signal | This book | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Reader pace | 38 | 28% |
| Buzz | 74 | 24% |
| Growth | 26 | 18% |
| Being read right now | 58 | 12% |
| Reader love | 74 | 10% |
| Newness | 50 | 8% |
Holding strong Wikipedia attention is steady (within -20% to +25% of the two months before).
The numbers behind it
- Wikipedia: 13,415 page views last month, against an average of 12,557 in the two months before (up 7%). Read the article.
- Open Library readers: 37 want to read, 2 reading now, 16 have read it.
- Ratings: 4 out of 5 from 13 Open Library ratings.
Martyr! on the Rising chart: history
First on the chart this month. The history grows with every monthly update.
| Month | Rank | Score |
|---|---|---|
| October 2026 | #26 | 51 |
Questions about Martyr!
Is Martyr! a new book?
Yes. Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar was first published in 2024, and BookWard's Rising chart only includes books published in the past two years.
Why is Martyr! on the Rising chart?
Its Wikipedia page had 13,415 views last month.
More new books readers are finding
- The Calamity Club Kathryn Stockett
- The Things We Never Say Elizabeth Strout
- John of John Douglas Stuart
- Half His Age Jennette McCurdy
Prefer proven favorites? See the Top 100, or all Rising books.
How we know
This page uses public data: Open Library reader counts and ratings, and Wikipedia page views. The description is paraphrased from real source text (Open Library or Wikipedia). A book is on the Rising chart only if it was published in 2025 or 2026 and its readers are active and its interest is not falling. Rankings reflect reading interest, not quality or sales. Read the full methodology.
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