Virtual Book Club | Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar

Register to join.: https://smithsonian.zoom.us/meeting/register/-aNMzt2QS8eO8K6Fh7Uocw#/registration Halloween costumes welcome~

Calling all readers! We’re starting a quarterly virtual book club, hosted by NPR’s Emily Kwong. You may recognize her from the hit podcast Inheriting about AAPI family history. Our club will meet once each season, with fresh recommendations from some of our favorite Asian-owned bookstores (including Loyalty Bookstore and Yu & Me Books).

Expect: open-ended questions, organic conversation, and a structured activity.

To kick off the club, our first book is Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar. Grab a copy from the museum store: https://asia.si.edu/visit/shopping/ on your next visit.

About Martyr! 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, Kaveh Akbar’s debut novel is a paean to how we spend our lives seeking meaning—in faith, art, ourselves, others. Martyr! is a New York Times bestseller, National Book Award finalist, one of The New York Times Book Review’s 10 Best Books of 2024, and a TIME Must-Read Book of 2024.

“Kaveh Akbar is one of my favorite writers. Ever.“—Tommy Orange, Pulitzer Prize-nominated author of There There

“Martyr! is nothing short of miraculous.“—The New York Times Book Review

Synopsis adapted from Penguin Random House.

Meet Your Host Emily Kwong Emily Kwong (she/her) is an NPR audio journalist working at the crossroads of history, science, and family memory.

She is the host of two shows: Short Wave, NPR’s science podcast, and Inheriting, LAist’s show about Asian American and Pacific Islander families. Her reporting style is driven by empathy and context—rooted in a sense of people’s lives continuing on long after the story ends. Season 2 of Inheriting will debut in January 2027 and is about five families shaped by five immigration policies passed down through the generations. You can find her on Instagram @kwongsong.

Emily loves to curl up with a good book and her orange cat Zuko. She’s very excited to host the first ever virtual book club for the National Museum of Asian Art.

Book cover courtesy of Penguin Random House.