NY Times Bestselling Author Kaveh Akbar Named 25-26 Metz Writer-in-Residence
Editor, poet, author to visit Knox May 22
Renowned poet and novelist Kaveh Akbar will join Knox College as the 2025-26 Metz Writer-in-Residence, the Department of English is excited to announce.
The department will host a reception with Akbar at 4 p.m. on May 22 inside the Red Room of Seymour Library. Following the reception, Akbar will give a reading. The event is open to the public.
Akbar’s 2024 novel Martyr! is currently on the New York Times bestseller list, was selected as one of the New York Times Book Review's best 10 books of the year, and was shortlisted for the National Book Award. Akbar is also a poet and the author of two collections of poetry, Calling a Wolf a Wolf (2017) and Pilgrim Bell (2021), as well as a chapbook, Portrait of the Alcoholic.
Akbar’s writing has appeared in publications such as the New Yorker, The New York Times, The Paris Review, The New Republic, GQ, The Atlantic, Best American Poetry, and Best American Sportswriting. He was the founding editor of Divedapper and has served as poetry editor for The Nation since 2020. Born in Tehran, Iran, Akbar is currently the Roy J. Carver Professor of English at the University of Iowa. His work has been translated into more than 30 languages.
He has received fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Poetry Foundation, and Civitella Ranieri, among others. His honors include the American Academy of Arts and Letters Rosenthal Family Foundation Award, the Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize, the Levis Reading Prize, multiple Pushcart Prizes, and recognition as one of the TIME 100 Next.
Akbar is the second Robin Metz Writer-in-Residence. The residency was established in honor of the late Robin Metz, founder of Knox’s creative writing program and faculty member for a half-century, and is supported by the Robin Metz Endowed Fund for the Creative Arts, established by Robin and Elizabeth Carlin Metz in honor of Robin’s years of teaching creative writing at Knox.
“Bringing writers to campus is among the best ways to refresh how we think of the craft of writing itself and the role of literature in the world,” Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing Nicholas Regiacorte said. “Robin Metz always sought to renew our sense of why writing matters. What better way than endowing a residency for the Knox community to experience how these writers adhere to a tradition, but also necessarily break with it? Residencies are essential to any art, I'd wager, vital to students and faculty alike.”
Published on May 18, 2026
- Scott Holland, Knox College Office of Communications