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.