Book cover art inspired by Martyr! (2024), the New York Times Bestseling novel by Kaveh Akbar. This visual interpretation and creative exploration was based on various themes, cultural topics and/or historical references mentioned in the book.
Official Book Information: Penguin Random House
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“Living happened until it didn't. There was no choice in it. To say no to a new day would be unthinkable. So each morning you said yes, then stepped into the consequence.” -K.A.
Official Book Description:
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • SHORTLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD • ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR • A TIME MUST-READ BOOK OF THE YEAR • A newly sober, orphaned son of Iranian immigrants, guided by the voices of artists, poets, and kings, embarks on a remarkable search for a family secret that leads him to a terminally ill painter living out her final days in the Brooklyn Museum. Electrifying, funny, and wholly original, Martyr! heralds the arrival of an essential new voice in contemporary fiction.
“Kaveh Akbar is one of my favorite writers. Ever.” —Tommy Orange, Pulitzer Prize–nominated author of There There
“The best novel you'll ever read about the joy of language, addiction, displacement, martyrdom, belonging, homesickness.” —Lauren Groff, best-selling author of Matrix and Fates and Furies
Cyrus Shams is a young man grappling with an inheritance of violence and loss: his mother’s plane was shot down over the skies of the Persian Gulf in a senseless accident; and his father’s life in America was circumscribed by his work killing chickens at a factory farm in the Midwest. Cyrus is a drunk, an addict, and a poet, whose obsession with martyrs leads him to examine the mysteries of his past—toward an uncle who rode through Iranian battlefields dressed as the angel of death to inspire and comfort the dying, and toward his mother, through a painting discovered in a Brooklyn art gallery that suggests she may not have been who or what she seemed.
Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr! is a paean to how we spend our lives seeking meaning—in faith, art, ourselves, others.
“Kaveh Akbar is one of my favorite writers. Ever.” —Tommy Orange, Pulitzer Prize–nominated author of There There
“The best novel you'll ever read about the joy of language, addiction, displacement, martyrdom, belonging, homesickness.” —Lauren Groff, best-selling author of Matrix and Fates and Furies
Cyrus Shams is a young man grappling with an inheritance of violence and loss: his mother’s plane was shot down over the skies of the Persian Gulf in a senseless accident; and his father’s life in America was circumscribed by his work killing chickens at a factory farm in the Midwest. Cyrus is a drunk, an addict, and a poet, whose obsession with martyrs leads him to examine the mysteries of his past—toward an uncle who rode through Iranian battlefields dressed as the angel of death to inspire and comfort the dying, and toward his mother, through a painting discovered in a Brooklyn art gallery that suggests she may not have been who or what she seemed.
Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr! is a paean to how we spend our lives seeking meaning—in faith, art, ourselves, others.
Audio book version of Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow
This visual direction is a more complex and abundant contrast to the original simplistic design. There are more visuals and unconventional moement within the art which includes various "Easter Eggs" referencing events and ideas mentioned in the book.
Work in Progress video showing various adjustments to the design
About the Author:
KAVEH AKBAR’s poems appear in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Paris Review, The Best American Poetry, and elsewhere. He is the author of two poetry collections: Pilgrim Bell and Calling a Wolf a Wolf, in addition to a chapbook, Portrait of the Alcoholic. He is also the editor of The Penguin Book of Spiritual Verse: 110 Poets on the Divine. He lives in Iowa City.
Praise for Martyr!
“Nothing short of miraculous.” — The New York Times
“Martyr! is so much its own creation that comparisons don't help.” — NPR
“I haven't loved a book this much in years.” — Tommy Orange
“Kaveh Akbar has given birth to a hilarious marvel of a novel. Rip-roaringly funny. Wise and wise-assed.” — Mary Karr
“So stunning, so wrenching, and so beautifully written that reading it for the first time, I kept forgetting to breathe.” — John Green
“This is a major novel that, like all major novels, doesn't quite resemble anything else you've read.” — Michael Cunningham
“Almost violently artful, full of sentences that stab, pierce, and slice with their beauty.” — The New Yorker
“Kaveh Akbar has written one of the best novels I've ever read.” — Karen Russell
“I can't remember the last time a book made me feel like this.” — Clint Smith
“A fever dream, a reckoning, a heartbreak, a shattering and mending, a delight—its double-helix of dreams and conversation are now part of my own DNA.” — Leslie Jamison
“The best novel you'll ever read about the joy of language addiction, displaceent, martyrdom, belonging, homesickness.” — Lauren Groff
Comparison with original cover art from previous book release
Credits:
Vintage Cloud Texture: Unknown
Arms holding axe: Luis Molinero