Jasmin Kaur’s second novel
If I Tell You The Truth follows the intersecting stories of Kiran, a Punjabi Sikh teenager who becomes pregnant after being sexually assaulted by her fiancé’s brother, and, eighteen years later, her daughter Sahaara, who speaks out against the powerful man who raped her mother. The book addresses immigration, rape culture in South Asia and the diaspora, and relationships between girls and women. “Our lives are seldom one topic,” Kaur tells ELLE.com. “We are many things all at once. It s the interlocking nature of all of these different themes that shape our lives. That’s what [the book is] about unraveling the layers of oppression and trauma that shaped the lives of this specific Punjabi mother and daughter, but also so many other families.”