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Kaveh Akbar, founding MFA faculty member, named National Book Award finalist

Kaveh Akbar, a founding faculty member of Randolph College’s MFA in creative writing, was recently named a National Book Award finalist for his 2024 novel, Martyr! 

Akbar is among 25 finalists contending for National Book Awards in the categories of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, translated literature, and young people’s literature. 

It’s been a busy month for Akbar; he was also just included on the Time 100 Next List, which spotlights 100 rising stars who are shaping the future of business, entertainment, sports, politics, science, health, and more. 

It is considered an expansion of the Time 100 list, and each honoree is written about by past alumni and other leaders. 

Author Lauren Groff, an honoree on the original Time 100 2024 list, praised Akbar as a “debut novelist of astonishing depth, humor, and originality, as well as stark, sinuous prose” and one of the country’s best poets. 

Akbar is an Iranian American poet, novelist, and scholar. His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Paris Review, Best American Poetry, and more. 

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: 100 Poets on the Divine. 

In 2020, Akbar was named poetry editor of The Nation. The recipient of multiple Pushcart Prizes, a Civitella Ranieri Foundation Fellowship, and the Levis Reading Prize, he also teaches at the University of Iowa and Warren Wilson’s MFA Program for Writers. 

Martyr! is his first novel. 

The 2024 National Book Award finalists will read from their work at a special event next month. WInners are announced at the 75th National Book Awards Ceremony & Benefit Dinner on Nov. 20. The National Book Award Foundation will broadcast the ceremony on YouTube, Facebook, and its website, nationalbook.org/awards

M.F.A. faculty member Kaveh Akbar leads a workshop


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