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Biography & Autobiography. Performing Arts. Nonfiction. Humor (Nonfiction.) HTML:#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER â?˘ More than one million copies sold! A â??brilliantâ? (Lupita Nyongâ??o, Time), â??poignantâ? (Entertainment Weekly), â??soul-nourishingâ? (USA Today) memoir about coming of age during the twilight of apartheid â??Noahâ??s childhood stories are told with all the hilarity and intellect that characterizes his comedy, while illuminating a dark and brutal period in South Africaâ??s history that must never be forgotten.â?â??Esquire Winner of the Thurber Prize for American Humor and an NAACP Image Award â?˘ 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 Noahâ??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 parentsâ?? 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 Africaâ??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 manâ??s relationship with his fearless, rebellious, and fervently religious motherâ??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 h… (more)
User reviews
But please don't think this memoir is all doom and gloom and fear. After all, Trevor Noah is a comedian, and he finds plenty of humor in his own story. And that's a very good thing: we need it, as he did, to endure the sadness and nearly intolerable constraints under which he grew up. There are the usual stories of teenage angst: falling in love, trying to find a date for the prom, falling in with a "bad crowd," trying to pull a fast one on his mother or stepfather, etc.
And behind it all is his mother Patricia. Her strength and wisdom, and the love between her and her son, come shining through.
I recommend the audio version, perfectly read by the man who lived it and wrote it.
Favourite Quotes
"it's easy to be judgmental about crime when you live in a world wealthy enough to be removed from it"
"My mother didnât believe in self-pity. âLearn from your past and be better because of your past,â she used to say, âbut donât cry about your past. Life is full of pain. Let the pain sharpen you, but donât hold on to it. Donât be bitter.â
âIn society, we do horrible things to one another because we donât see the person it affects. We donât see their face. We donât see them as people. Which was the whole reason the hood was built in the first place, to keep the victims of apartheid out of sight and out of mind. Because if white people ever saw black people as human, they would see that slavery is unconscionable. We live in a world where we donât see the ramifications of what we do to others, because we donât live with them. It would be a whole lot harder for an investment banker to rip off people with subprime mortgages if he actually had to live with the people he was ripping off. If we could see one anotherâs pain and empathize with one another, it would never be worth it to us to commit the crimes in the first place.â
As a black woman growing up in racist America, even I cannot imagine what it was
Excellent listen.
Trevor Noah is a natural storyteller. His vignettes from his life are entertaining and at times humorous. But he does not mince words in discussing systemic oppression and its impact. He is also extremely forthcoming about his own foibles, including a stint in jail. Along the way, the reader learns about South Africaâs history, cultures, multiplicity of languages, and racial divisions.
I was struck by his close relationship with his mother, a strong woman who rebelled against the status quo. She provided a structured life for him and enabled him to view life in a positive way, despite the many obstacles. She also dealt with domestic abuse, and this is an area where the police and social norms were complicit in what eventually happened to her.
I listened to the audiobook, brilliantly read by Trevor Noah. As a caution, I would not recommend listening to it within earshot of those sensitive to expletives. I am not a follower of his show and I generally steer clear of the celebrity culture, but I was greatly impressed by this memoir. He has something to say, and he says it well.
When his fiercely independent mother decided she wanted a baby, she picked her best friend for the father. It didn't matter to her that he was a white foreign national. However, it did matter to South Africa. It was a crime for whites and
Throughout her life, this strong woman bucked the system in many ways, finding ways to live in the better neighborhoods where it was illegal for her to live, and getting the best education for her son.
Trevor spent his earliest years being hidden- not allowed to venture from his family house and yard. Once apartheid ended, and Nelson Mandela walked out of prison, things became different â but the deeply ingrained racist system remained.
Trevor identified himself as black since he lived within a black family. To the casual observer, he was much lighter skinned and so labeled as mixed â but the mixed bloods, who were the result of mixed bloods marrying mixed bloods for generations, had their own culture as did the whites, the Indians and the Chinese. The race that you belonged to determined who who were, where you lived and whom you hung out with in the school yard. Trevor was the odd man out â not belonging to any of the predetermined groups.
This is Trevor's story of finding a place for himself in a society.
Like others with painful childhoods, Trevor overcame with humor, and is now a well-known South African comedian. The stories he tells are deeply saddening but achingly funny at the same time. It's a vivid picture of growing up in an absurd time with an absurd and unjust system where white policemen armed with automatic rifles and tactical gear still arrived to break up noise complaints in black neighborhoods.
Highly recommended!
The book is full of deeply personal recollections that make the reader feel like you are having a one on one conversation with the author. At times very funny, it is also in turns informative, eyeopening and unnerving. Over and above all, this book stands as a tribute to his mother, who is an amazing and brave woman. Choosing to have a bi-racial child during the dark days of apartheid was dangerous and difficult as this very act violated many of South Africaâs laws at that time. She deliberately chose his name of Trevor as it has no African meaning so that he could grow up to be free to be, go or do whatever he wished. Her valuable life lessons were delivered to her son along with firm discipline and fierce religious values.
Hearing these stories in the authorâs own voice gives both the humorous situations and his social observations a feeling of authenticity as he takes you on this journey of his early years. Born A Crime was an excellent listening experience that I highly recommend.
I listened to the audio narrated by the author, and I'm certain this added to
Wonderful book!
In fact, his fame might hurt it a little -- everyone I recommend it to seems to think Trevor Noah is this mild mannered man with a cute accent.
He provides an incredibly fascinating first personal account of growing up
Noah is not a writer, so it's not a literary, gripping, flowing book.
Noah is not THE GLASS CASTLE, so it's not "OMG how I
Ultimately it is a story: the story of his mother. Noah knows what material he's got, and that his mother's story is the Big Story in his life, and he tells it simply and effectively.
This is a great memoir -- informative about race in South Africa during and after apartheid; interesting about the mixed-race comedianâs growing up and coming of age there; and inspirational about how his mother stepped âway outside societal and legal bounds to have him and raise him. Itâs upbeat and often humorous. Itâs also reflective, and the passages about domestic violence by his stepfather are among the most harrowing Iâve read.
{T}he highest rung of whatâs possible is far beyond the world you can see. My mother showed me what was possible. The thing that always amazed me about her life was that no one showed her. ⌠She found her way through sheer force of will.
In âBorn a Crimeâ, the beloved Daily Show host reveals his complicated childhood and early young man years in South Africa. In a 3 parts book, separated into early child hood, school/teen years, and post high school years, we learn of the complications of being a âborn a crimeâ person, the appalling execution and effects of apartheid, and the inherent difficulties of living in and around poverty. Delivered in a style honed by years of being a standup comedian and now talk-show host, his words have a precision and clarity that drills into the heart of the matter. The facts of his youth, his upbringing, his âno-boxâ status (not white, not black, not colored â per SA standards) leaves him vulnerable to arrest, to segregation (physically and figuratively) amongst his peers, his naughtiness as a child, and his somewhat criminally-oriented activities as a young adult are simply incredible to read. Itâs survival. It was his and his friendsâ means to have food in their mouth and a roof over their heads. (He does apologize to all the artists whose music he had ripped off.)
I was particularly affected by parts 1 and 2, his early years and school years. He inserted one to two informative pages in between these chapters to give background on how things came to be. These pages are educational even if the reader is familiar with the tragic apartheid years. And they interwove with his life story immensely well. Throughout these years, his mom, an abandoned child herself who clawed her way to independence, had such an influence on his young mind, keeping him aware of the larger life out there. Even though she canât outright give him opportunities, at least heâs aware to never hold himself back, which is more than what most parents give their children, especially in the limited environment they were in. By golly, sheâs incredible. Itâs been said and I completely agree, this book is Trevor Noahâs love letter to his mother. Hang on to your chair on the last chapter though, I damn near fell off the chair and sweated my way through those words. No quotes provided.
If you like his show, please read the book. You will undeniably appreciate the life that made him into the man that he is today. As for me, now I really want to meet his mom. Sheâs AMAZEBALLS.
On Religion â I wondered the same damn thing!
ââŚFor a long time I didnât understand why so many black people had abandoned their indigenous faith for Christianity. But the more we went to church and the longer I sat in those pews the more I learned about how Christianity works: If youâre Native American and you pray to the wolves, youâre a savage. If youâre African and you pray to your ancestors, youâre a primitive. But when white people pray to a guy who turns water into wine, well, thatâs just common sense.â
On Apartheid:
âApartheid was a police state, a system of surveillance and laws designed to keep black people under total control. A full compendium of those laws would run more than three thousand pages and weight approximately ten pounds, but the general thrust of it should be easy enough for any American to understand. In America you had the forced removal of the native onto reservations coupled with slavery followed by segregation. Imagine all three of those things happening to the same group of people at the same time. That was apartheid.â
On Race as Chocolate:
âAs a kid I understood that people were different colors, but in my head white and black and brown were like types of chocolate. Dad was the white chocolate, mom was the dark chocolate, and I was the milk chocolate. But we were all just chocolate. I didnât know how any of it had anything to do with âraceââŚâ
On Racism and education:
ââŚThe difference between British racism and Afrikaner racism was that at least the British gave the natives something to aspire to. If they could learn to speak correct English and dress in proper clothes, if they could Anglicize and civilize themselves, one day they might be welcome in society. The Afrikaners never gave us that option. British racism said, âIf the monkey can walk like a man and talk like a man, then perhaps he is a man.â Afrikaner racism said, âWhy give a book to a monkey?ââ
On being in the ghetto:
ââŚSo many black people had internalized the logic of apartheid and made it their own. Why teach a black child white things? Neighbors and relatives used to pester my mom. âWhy do all this? Why show him the world when heâs never going to leave the ghetto?â âBecause,â she would say, âeven if he never leaves the ghetto, he will know that the ghetto is not the world. If that is all I accomplish, Iâve done enough.â
On being chosen and wanted (heâs 24 now):
ââŚhe got up and went and picked up this book, an oversized photo album⌠âIâve been following you.â⌠Itâs a scrapbook of everything I had ever doneâŚ
I felt a flood of emotions rushing through me. It was everything I could do not to start crying. It felt like this ten-year gap in my life closed right up in an instant, like only a day had passed since Iâd last seen him. For years Iâd had so many questions. Is he thinking about me? Does he know what Iâm doing? Is he proud of me? But heâd been with me the whole time. Heâd always been proud of me. Circumstances had pulled us apart, but he was never not my father.
I walked out of his house that day an inch taller. Seeing him had reaffirmed his choosing of me. He chose to have me in his life. He chose to answer my letter. I was wanted. Being chosen is the greatest gift you can give to another human being.â
Noah is a terrific writer, and he grabs your attention
âBorn A Crimeâ gets its title from the fact that it was illegal for blacks and whites to marry, so his parents had to hide their relationship, and Trevor was never allowed to walk next to both of his parents.
The book is a really a love letter to his mom, who pretty much raised Trevor alone, although Trevor spent a lot of time with his grandmother. His stories of childhood are touching, funny and sad.
Anyone who likes a good memoir will enjoy âBorn a Crimeâ. It gives the reader a look at a place many of us are unfamiliar with, yet his story of a mother who worked hard to give her son a better life is universal.
Both a memoir of Trevor Noah's life and a brief history of apartheid in South Africa. Each chapter begins with information about life in South Africa -- the many languages spoken, the mix of tribes and settlers, societal norms in South Africa -- and Noah then
His love of his wonderfully outspoken mother shines through.
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Noah Trevor was born to a black Xhosa mother and a white father. Under apartheid it was criminal for white and Black people to have intimate relations. Noah was hidden indoors and not allowed to walk with his mother in the streets. It was under this regime that Noah grew from boy to man. Isolated from others he became a troublemaker, a risk-taker and was so clever that he could outfox almost anybody. As an adult, after Apartheid he strove to find a place for himself while in a country still ruled by race. He was involved in several activities that were dangerous and trecherous but Noah was hell-bent on living life to its fullest, though he is clear and serious about how often he was afraid.
Born A Crime is not a laugh-out-loud funny book. It is both light-hearted and deep and wise book and his voice is sometimes wry, sometimes passionate, often mischievous and rooted in compassion. IWe understand that he was often fearful, scared for his safety, hungry and lonely. He doesn't pull any punches about that.
Really at bottom, Born to Crime is a great mother-son love story. Noah's mother was fierce, kind, a lover of life, a hard disciplinarian who took enormous risks to protect her son and also to make sure that he participated in every opportunity out there and "no" just couldn't cut it (and this means she made opportunities, not just took them)." She loved him intensely and unconditionally and at the same time reined him in over and over again. I do not if Noah's mother calls herself a feminist but she taught him how to respect, love and treat a woman for all the reasons that really matter.
Thank you to Edelweiss and Spiegal and Grau for allowing me to review this book for an honest opinion.