The Other Side of Truth

‘The Other Side of Truth’ is a novel written by author, Beverly Naidoo. The novel is mainly based on telling the truth and lying, and when it is right to do either. In the book are various types of situations where characters need to make a decision on whether to lie or to tell the truth. Beverly Naidoo provides the correct decisions and the wrong ones in the story.

Naidoo shows in the novel, when it is ok to lie and when it is not. Naidoo suggests that if your life is in danger it is considered ok to lie, but if you assume your life is still in danger when it’s actually not you might accidently lie to the wrong people. Naidoo displays this when Sade and Femi find the father in a detention centre and ask him why he is not able to come back home with them. Folarin says that he cannot because Sade lied about who they were to the officials. Now the officials do not believe Folarin when he says that they are his kids. There is a strong message that sometimes one lie is ok in the right circumstances, but consecutive lies could end you up in a lot of trouble. An important quote from the book states this idea, “A lie has seven winding path, the truth has one straight road.”pg. 148. Lying could be a very dangerous thing, telling the truth is the best way to go, but even the truth can land you in trouble.
The truth is a very powerful thing, it is important that you tell it, this is portrayed by Naidoo in her novel. Naidoo has based the whole novel around the truth. In the story it is used when it should and shouldn’t be. Folarin Solaja is the main protagonist in the novel when it comes to the importance of telling the truth. He states several quotes about how important in his mind, it is to tell the