The Iran-Iraq War, one of the longest wars in the 20th century, deeply affected both countries. In Iran, one aspect of this has been the formation of a specific war culture; a culture that began to take shape from the earliest days of the conflict and continues until today. At the heart of it is a particular concept of martyrdom rooted in ideas based on the Karbala paradigm, thoroughly adapted to the contemporary socio-political context framed by the Iraqi invasion and the 1979 Revolution. It is a concept which has permeated all aspects of state-sponsored discourse on the war. Literature has become one of the most salient sites of reflection of Iranian war culture. Literary output about the war--in the forms of prose fiction, poetry and memoir--has been immense, yet, until very recently remained largely unexplored by scholars of Iranian studies in the west as well as in Iran. A cursory look at the existing studies on Iranian war literature immediately makes apparent the need for this field to be investigated more thoroughly. This is especially true when one realizes that literature has also proven to be one of the most vibrant sites of struggle between proponents of the Iranian state's ideology and its critics. By examining works in the genres of memoir and fiction by major contemporary Iranian authors such as Shahriar Mandanipour, Ahmad Dehqan, Hossein Mortezian Abkenar and Zahra Hosseini this paper will focus on the literary figure of the martyr and the concept of martyrdom, demonstrating the ways in which literature has become a critical semiotic site for discursive battles on the Iran-Iraq War. In examining works by these authors and others, this paper will show how the martyr has been re-imagined and depicted in various ways that transform notions of heroism, masculinity and bravery. Additionally, it will highlight continuity and change within Iranian war writing and explore the ways in which authors have sought to problematize the concept of martyrdom, and by extension, issue a challenge to one of the ideological underpinnings of the official discourse on the Iran-Iraq War.