Triage

In Triage, bestselling author Claudia Rankine, whose groundbreaking works Citizen and Just Us redefined contemporary literature, takes a bold new creative direction. Presented with full-color visuals, this deeply personal work blends narrative, memoir, criticism, and essay into her most emotionally resonant book to date.

Triage traces the turbulent, decades-long friendship between two composite characters—the narrator and the theorist—who consider themselves sisters while struggling to make sense of their shared histories and individual wounds. As college students, they invent a ritual they call “collapse”: every time they meet, they must stop and fall to the ground. Over the years, the act takes on profound new meaning as they confront personal trauma, challenging conversations, works of art, the devastation in Gaza, and the enduring complexities of love and friendship.

Both intimate and expansive, Triage is a meditation on grief, memory, and the urgency of action in an era marked by relentless loss. As Rankine writes, “No matter our posture, we are all among the rubble.” It is a powerful reflection on the friendships that challenge us, sustain us, and ultimately help us become more fully human.