-- This is a preorder title and will ship on or after January 20, 2026 --

“This singular memoir stunned me. With a poet’s precision, Rachel Eliza Griffiths renders two interwoven tragedies few others could have lived through, much less written about with such clear-eyed candor.”—Mary Karr, New York Times bestselling author of The Liars’ Club

On September 24, 2021, Rachel Eliza Griffiths married her husband, the novelist Salman Rushdie. On the same day, hundreds of miles away, Griffiths’ closest friend and chosen sister, the poet Kamilah Aisha Moon, who was expected to speak at the wedding, died suddenly. Eleven months later, as Griffiths attempted to piece together her life as a newlywed with heartbreak in one hand and immense love in the other, a brutal attack nearly killed her husband. As trauma compounded trauma, Griffiths realized that in order to survive her grief, she would need to mourn not only her friend, but the woman she had been on her wedding day, a woman who had also died that day.

In the process of rebuilding a self, Griffiths chronicles her friendship with Moon, the seventeen years since their meeting at Sarah Lawrence College. Together, they embraced their literary foremothers—Lucille Clifton, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, to name a few—and fought to embrace themselves as poets, artists, and Black women. Alongside this unbreakable bond, Griffiths weaves the story of her relationship with Rushdie, of the challenges they have faced and the unshakeable devotion that endures.

In The Flower Bearers, Griffiths inscribes the trajectories of two transformational relationships with grace and honesty, chronicling the beauty and pain that comes with opening oneself fully to love.

BIO

Rachel Eliza Griffiths is an acclaimed American poet, visual artist, and novelist known for her powerful explorations of Black womanhood, memory, and landscape, often blending text and photography, with works appearing in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and collections like Seeing the Body, earning her awards and fellowships including the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and Cave Canem support, while also teaching and directing the P.O.P (Poets on Poetry) video project.

REVIEWS

“The Flower Bearers is a memoir of duality, of intoxicating love and excruciating loss. Here is a poet plying her tools in the service of literature’s most vital work: describing life and how to bear it.” -- Geraldine Brooks, author of Memorial Days

“In prose as luminous as her verse, Rachel Eliza Griffiths has written a testament to the human spirit’s ability to withstand a sundering—and to emerge with a heart made wider by the breaking.” -- Suleika Jaouad, author of Between Two Kingdoms

“With the sensitivity of an artist and the intimacy of a faithful friend, Griffiths offers us a searing reminder that to live is to insist on love, relentlessly.” -- Qian Julie Wang, author of Beautiful Country

[H]  Random House  /  January 20, 2026

1.3" H x 8.5" L x 5.9" W (0.9 lbs) 336 pages