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== Personal life ==
Jaswal was born in Singapore; her family moved internationally during her childhood, following her father's career in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She lived in Singapore from the ages of eight to 15, and also lived in Japan, Russia, the Philippines growing up.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2">{{Cite web|last=Yusof|first=Helmi|date=2019-07-06|title=Books: Balli Kaur Jaswal, Bestselling author|url=https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/lifestyle/weekend-interview/balli-kaur-jaswal|url-status=live|access-date=2021-04-01|website=Business Times|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190611070120/https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/lifestyle/weekend-interview/balli-kaur-jaswal |archive-date=2019-06-11 }}</ref> She studied English at [[Hollins University]] in the United States<ref name=":1" /> and graduated in 2004.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Books To Read While Social Distancing|url=https://www.hollins.edu/alumnae/books-social-distancing/|access-date=2021-04-01|website=Hollins|language=en}}</ref> In 2007, she was awarded the David T.K. Wong Fellowship for writing at [[University of East Anglia]] in the United Kingdom, which supports English-language writing about Asia.<ref name=":4">{{Cite news|last=Wright|first=Ed|date=2013-03-23|title=New Australian Fiction|page=23|work=The Australian
== Career ==
Jaswal began writing her first novel, ''Sugarbread'', while she was in college but has said that she did not know enough yet about writing novels, so it was not the first to see publication.<ref name=":0" /> With more experience, she wrote and published ''Inheritance'' in 2013. She was motivated to return to ''Sugarbread'' when Singaporean publisher Epigram Books established a prize for unpublished manuscripts; she revised and the manuscript, and it won $5000 as the runner up in the contest.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /> These first two novels are set in Singapore; her third novel, ''[[Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows]]'', is set in the largely [[Punjabis|Punjabi]] neighborhood of [[Southall]] in [[London]]. Her fourth novel, ''The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters,'' is primarily set in India''.''<ref name=":2" />
She is known for writing about socially challenging subjects, especially challenging within the strictures of her native Singaporean context. Her novels deal with homosexuality, mental health, racism, patriarchy, and honor killings.<ref name=":1" /><ref>{{Cite web|last=Poh|first=Joshua|date=2019-01-13|title=Book Review: Erotic Stories For Punjab Widows|url=https://medium.com/@joshuapoh/book-review-erotic-stories-for-punjab-widows-46684c315bb2|access-date=2021-04-03|website=Medium|language=en}}</ref> In May 2017, Jaswal wrote an [[op-ed]] piece for the ''[[The New York Times|New York Times]]'' entitled "[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/21/opinion/singapore-media-censorship.html?searchResultPosition=1 The Censor and the Vibrator]" in which she addressed the challenges of living under Singaporean government censorship, including growing up with a skewed and incomplete understanding of sex.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Guest|first=Peter|date=2018-04-13|title=Blurred lines: Traversing the boundaries of Singaporean state censorship|page=23|work=TLS. [[Times Literary Supplement]]|issue=6002|url=https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/blurred-lines/
Jaswal has been seen both as a voice of the [[Punjabi diaspora]], and a critic of Punjabi communities.<ref name=":12" /> In an interview with the Indian newspaper ''[[The Hindu]]'' she disputes the notion that members of the diaspora are inherently more progressive than those in India.<ref name=":12" /> Many of her characters do take more progressive stances and challenge authority, however, which has drawn some criticism that she portrays Punjabi communities in a poor light.<ref name=":12" /> Speaking to ''[[The Deccan Chronicle]]'', Jaswal said "Identity is a major theme in all my works, and I haven’t strayed far from Punjabi female characters because there’s still so much work to do in telling their stories."<ref>{{Cite web|last=Cris|date=2017-03-26|title=Crossing the 'taboo' line|url=https://www.deccanchronicle.com/sunday-chronicle/shelf-life/260317/crossing-the-taboo-line.html|url-status=live|access-date=2021-04-07|website=Deccan Chronicle|language=en|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170325214425/http://www.deccanchronicle.com/sunday-chronicle/shelf-life/260317/crossing-the-taboo-line.html |archive-date=2017-03-25 }}</ref> Reluctant to be "pigeon-holed" as solely as a writer of the Punjabi diaspora, Jaswal said in 2019 that her next novel would feature Filipino domestic workers in Singapore.<ref name=":12" />
=== Inheritance ===
Jaswal's first published novel, ''Inheritance'', was developed during her Wong Fellowship at East Anglia University.<ref name=":4" /> The novel explores social changes in Singapore from the 1970 to the 1990 through the lens of a Sikh family of Punjabi descent living in Singapore. The family, headed by widower policeman Harbeer, includes an eldest son dismissed from the army on suspicion of homosexuality, a daughter troubled by mental illness, a conservative younger son, and an ambitious nephew.<ref name=":5">{{Cite news|last=Pierce|first=Peter|date=Feb 2013|title=Inheritance|page=56|work=Monthly: Australian Politics, Society & Culture|url=https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2013/february/1361399427/peter-pierce/inheritance-balli-kaur-jaswal#mtr
Writing for ''The Australian'', Ed Wright described ''Inheritance'' as "pellucid and evocative", building "its world simultaneously with anthropological awareness and intimacy", and praised its psychological realism.<ref name=":4" /> Another critic, Peter Pierce praised Jaswal's creativity even as he saw room for improvement in the writing of her first novel; he write that Jaswal "makes a debut of an imaginative boldness and assurance not yet matched by the quality of its prose, but we are tantalised by the thought of what she will do next."<ref name=":5" />
=== Sugarbread ===
Singapore is the setting for Jaswal's second novel, ''Sugarbread'' as well. The central character, Pin (short for Parveen), is a ten-year-old girl from a Sikh family but attending a Christian school. The story follows tensions in Pin's home as her grandmother comes to live with her family, disrupting a previously relaxed environment with a strict adherence to Sikh cultural practices. Pin's mother, Jini, becomes more reserved, and her previously wide-ranging and expressive cooking becomes monotonous, routine, and very traditional. Pin learns of the tensions between her mother and grandmother at home, she is exposed to the cruelty of racism at school and the pressure to conform.<ref name=":6">{{Cite news|last=Raha|first=Shuma|date=2020-11-28|title=Pin grows up: Shuma Raha reviews Balli Kaur Jaswal's 'Sugarbread'|language=en-IN|work=The Hindu|url=https://www.thehindu.com/books/pin-grows-up-shuma-raha-reviews-balli-kaur-jaswals-sugarbread/article33191431.ece|access-date=2021-04-06|issn=0971-751X}}</ref><ref name=":7">{{Cite web|last=Salleh|first=Nur Asyiqin Mohamad|date=2016-08-07|title=Mother with a dark secret|url=https://www.straitstimes.com/lifestyle/arts/mother-with-a-dark-secret|url-status=live|access-date=2021-04-06|website=The Straits Times|language=en|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160812084605/http://www.straitstimes.com:80/lifestyle/arts/mother-with-a-dark-secret |archive-date=2016-08-12 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|last=Tan|first=Cheryl Lu-Lien|authorlink=Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan|date=2018-04-13|title=Exquisite, lush and menacing: Forces of control in new novels from Singapore|work=TLS. Times Literary Supplement|issue=6002
Shuma Raha, reviewer for the Indian newspaper ''[[The Hindu]]'' describes the novel as "comfort" reading "refreshingly free from [the] nostalgia-soaked cultural clutter" that can be typical of diaspora novels. She notes, however, that the "only problem" with the book is that the mature voice of the book strains its credibility as that of ten-year-olds viewpoint.<ref name=":6" /> Nur Asyiqin Mohamad Salleh of the Singaporean newspaper ''[[The Straits Times]]'' called ''Sugarbread'' "a complex, layered story worth multiple re-reads" that fills an "important gap in Singapore literature with its portrayal of the Punjabi-Sikh community." Salleh notes that while the novel is written with "nuance and sensitivity", the foreshadowing of the central mystery in the book is "jarring" and "heavy-handed". Salleh finds the novel both personal and culturally-aware, with an attention to Singapore's tensions over racial and cultural challenges.<ref name=":7" />
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