Born A Crime:
Written by: Trevor
Noah
Narrated by: Trevor
Noah
Listen
Time: 8 Hours
46 Minutes
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
viewers around 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 a personal 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 listen.