Kaveh Akbar's novel 'Martyr!' is a journey of identity, addiction and poetry

NPR's Book of the Day

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Books, Arts

4.2 • 672 Ratings

🗓️ 31 January 2024

⏱️ 9 minutes

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Summary

Halfway through today's episode, author Kaveh Akbar tells NPR's Scott Simon that his life is a summation of "private joys amidst collective grief and private grief amidst collective joy." It's a contrast that contextualizes his emotionally dark yet deeply funny debut novel, Martyr!, about an Iranian-American poet grappling with addiction, loss, displacement and art. Akbar, who is also poetry editor at The Nation, explains why his protagonist is so obsessed with the concept of martyrdom, and how it relates to his own personal journey with sobriety.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey everybody, I'm Timberdiarmius, and this is NPR's Book of the Day.
0:06.8	What does it mean to be immortal?
0:09.8	It's a question that serves as something of a motivation for Cyrus Shams,
0:13.7	the character at the heart of the novel Martyr by Kavei Akbar.
0:17.8	Cyrus has had a rough go of it,
0:19.9	suffering from a number of personal challenges, including
0:22.6	the death of his parents and battling addiction.
0:25.6	And it's against this backdrop that Cyrus looks to find some kind of solace through poetry.
0:30.6	But he runs into challenges along the way.
0:33.6	In this interview with weekend edition host Scott Simon, Akbar discusses the forces that shape Cyrus and the role that art can play in honoring a life and quite possibly saving it too.
0:45.4	Here's Scott Simon.
0:47.0	In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life.
0:51.8	Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors. On our new show,
0:57.3	Sources and Methods. NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people,
1:02.1	helping you understand why distant events matter here at home. Listen to sources and methods on the NPR
1:07.9	app or wherever you get your podcasts.
1:15.7	Cyrus Shams is both the son of the Middle East in the American Middle West,
1:17.8	who's been instilled with tragedy.
1:22.3	His mother, Roya, was aboard Iran Air Flight 655,
1:27.9	which was shot down by mistake by the U.S. Navy during the Iran War in 1988.
1:35.3	He and his father Ali wind up moving to Indiana, where Ali works, overworks, really, at a poultry farm and dies from a stroke.
1:38.7	Cyrus becomes a drunk, drug addict, and a poet, not a totally unprecedented combination, but at the age of 30
	...

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