Rachel Eliza Griffiths is chronicling her journey with grief and honoring the love that carried her through.
The celebrated poet and novelist has a new memoir, The Flower Bearers, on the way — a moving account of her life's most powerful love and most immense loss, compounded into the same moment in time. Griffiths' memoir, debuting in January 2026, casts light on the "beauty and pain that comes with opening oneself fully to love."
Griffiths' memoir begins on Sept. 24, 2021 — her wedding to fellow writer Salman Rushdie. That same day, Griffiths' "closest friend and chosen sister" Kamilah Aisha Moon — who was set to speak at the wedding — suddenly passed away.
Nearly one year later, Griffiths began to sort through the emotions of that day — deep grief in close proximity with profound love. As she works to heal and reconcile her experiences, tragedy strikes again when her husband is violently attacked.
"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," the synopsis reads.
The Flower Bearers pays tribute to Griffiths' friendship with Moon, marked by their shared identities as poets, artists and Black women, strengthened in the 17 years since they first met in college. Interwoven is Griffiths' love story with Rushdie, a testament to the challenges they fought to overcome and the "unshakeable devotion that endures."
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Griffiths tells PEOPLE she hopes that sharing her story — a blend of love, grief and loss — helps others through their own hardships.
"My hope is that my personal journey reaches those who feel hopeless and who are struggling to survive trauma," Griffiths tells PEOPLE in a statement. "I myself sensed the existence, strength and love of others out there who experienced similar loss — it is one of the reasons I felt able to tell my story on my own terms. The courage of love lifts us all.”
She adds, “The Flower Bearers is the most vulnerable work I've ever created. It wasn't a book I ever wanted to write or to live, but grief and love have given me gifts I never imagined."
The Flower Bearers comes out Jan. 20, 2026 and is available for preorder now, wherever books are sold.