Renowned poet and novelist Kaveh Akbar, whose debut novel Martyr! became a New York Times bestseller and was a finalist for the National Book Award, will visit Knox College this week as the 2025-26 Metz Writer-in-Residence.
About the event
Knox College will host a reception with Akbar at 4 p.m. Friday, May 22 in the Red Room of Seymour Library. A public reading will follow the reception.
The event is free and open to the public.
About the author
Born in Tehran, Iran, Akbar is the Roy J. Carver Professor of English at the University of Iowa. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Paris Review, The Atlantic, GQ and The New Republic. He founded the literary journal Divedapper and has served as poetry editor for The Nation since 2020.
Akbar is the author of the poetry collections Calling a Wolf a Wolf and Pilgrim Bell. His work has been translated into more than 30 languages, and he has received fellowships and awards from organizations including the Guggenheim Foundation, the Poetry Foundation, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Martyr! is Akbar’s first novel.
Why Martyr! resonates with readers
In a review for The Knox Student, staff writer Qasim Hasnain Kazmi called the novel one of the best books he read in 2025, praising its exploration of grief, addiction, identity and the search for meaning through the story of Cyrus Shams, a newly sober Iranian American writer.
About the residency
Akbar is the second recipient of Knox College’s Robin Metz Writer-in-Residence program, which honors the late Robin Metz, founder of the college’s creative writing program and a longtime faculty member. The residency is supported through the Robin Metz Endowed Fund for the Creative Arts.
