This flaw does not take away the central purpose of the book, which is the act of loving others-even ones that do grievous harm-is revolutionary in a time of confusion, heartache, and racial violence. However, there are stretches where her rhetoric of “revolutionary love” slows down the narrative and becomes derivative. The book is strongest when the author focuses on her personal experiences, her family life, and her activism during and after her time in law and divinity school. She became an activist partly because of her Sikh beliefs which involve equality, empathy, and love in response to escalating violence toward Sikhs in the United States following the September 11 attacks.

A Sikh activist, filmmaker, and political commentator, Kaur was born and raised in a large and loving Sikh family, one of few in an insulated California farming community. See No Stranger helps us imagine new ways of being with each other-and with ourselves-so that together we can begin to build the world we want to see.Kaur’s debut is part memoir, part cultural commentary arguing that one way to combat hatred and ignorance is to take the Sikh approach of empathy and forgiveness toward those who harm or fear others.

Drawing from the wisdom of sages, scientists, and activists, Kaur reclaims love as an active, public, and revolutionary force that creates new possibilities for ourselves, our communities, and our world. Kaur takes readers through her own riveting journey-as a brown girl growing up in California farmland finding her place in the world as a young adult galvanized by the murders of Sikhs after 9/11 as a law student fighting injustices in American prisons and on Guantánamo Bay as an activist working with communities recovering from xenophobic attacks and as a woman trying to heal from her own experiences with police violence and sexual assault. Starting from that place of wonder, the world begins to change: It is a practice that can transform a relationship, a community, a culture, even a nation. It enjoins us to see no stranger but instead look at others and say: You are part of me I do not yet know. How do we love in a time of rage? How do we fix a broken world while not breaking ourselves? Valarie Kaur-renowned Sikh activist, filmmaker, and civil rights lawyer-describes revolutionary love as the call of our time, a radical, joyful practice that extends in three directions: to others, to our opponents, and to ourselves. 'In a world stricken with fear and turmoil, Valarie Kaur shows us how to summon our deepest wisdom.'-Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat Pray Love An urgent manifesto and a dramatic memoir of awakening, this is the story of revolutionary love.

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