The compelling, inspiring, (often comic) coming-of-age story of Trevor Noah, set
during the twilight of apartheid and the tumultuous days of freedom that
followed. One of the comedy world's brightest new voices, Trevor Noah is a light-footed
but sharp-minded observer of the absurdities of politics, race and identity,
sharing jokes and insights drawn from the wealth of experience acquired in his
relatively young life. As host of the US hit show The Daily Show with Trevor
Noah, he provides viewersaround the globe with their nightly dose of biting
satire, but here Noah turns his focus inward, giving readers a deeply personal,
heartfelt and humorous look at the world that shaped him. Noah was born a crime, son of a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother, at
a time when such a union was punishable by five years in prison. Living proof of
his parents' indiscretion, Trevor was kept mostly indoors for the first years of
his life, bound by the extreme and often absurd measures his mother took to hide
him from a government that could, at any moment, take him away. A collection of eighteen personal stories, Born a Crime tells the story of a
mischievous young boy growing into a restless young man as he struggles to find
his place in a world where he was never supposed to exist. Born a Crime is
equally the story of that young man's fearless, rebellious and fervently
religious mother - a woman determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty,
violence and abuse that ultimately threatens her own life. Whether subsisting on caterpillars for dinner during hard times, being thrown
from a moving car during an attempted kidnapping, or just trying to survive the
life-and-death pitfalls of dating in high school, Noah illuminates his curious
world with an incisive wit and an unflinching honesty. His stories weave
together to form apersonal portrait of an unlikely childhood in a dangerous
time, as moving and unforgettable as the very best memoirs and as funny as
Noah's own hilarious stand-up. Born a Crime is a must read.
