#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - More than one million copies sold!
A "brilliant" (Lupita Nyong'o, Time), "poignant" (Entertainment
Weekly), "soul-nourishing" (USA Today) memoir about coming of age
during the twilight of apartheid
"Noah's childhood stories are told with all the hilarity and intellect
that characterizes his comedy, while illuminating a dark and brutal
period in South Africa's history that must never be
forgotten."--Esquire
Winner of the Thurber Prize for American Humor and an NAACP Image
Award - Named one of the best books of the year by The New York Time,
USA Today, San Francisco Chronicle, NPR, Esquire, Newsday, and
Booklist
Trevor Noah's unlikely path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of
The Daily Show began with a criminal act: his birth. Trevor was born
to 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 earliest
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,
steal him away. Finally liberated by the end of South Africa's
tyrannical white rule, Trevor and his mother set forth on a grand
adventure, living openly and freely and embracing the opportunities won
by a centuries-long struggle.
Born a Crime is the story of a mischievous young boy who grows into a
restless young man as he struggles to find himself in a world where he
was never supposed to exist. It is also the story of that young man's
relationship with his fearless, rebellious, and fervently religious
mother--his teammate, a woman determined to save her son from the cycle
of poverty, violence, and abuse that would ultimately threaten her own
life.
The stories collected here are by turns hilarious, dramatic, and deeply
affecting. 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, Trevor illuminates his curious world with an incisive wit and
unflinching honesty. His stories weave together to form a moving and
searingly funny portrait of a boy making his way through a damaged world
in a dangerous time, armed only with a keen sense of humor and a
mother's unconventional, unconditional love.
