#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The compelling inspiring and comically sublime story of one
man's coming-of-age set during the twilight of apartheid and the tumultuous days of freedom
that followed NAMED ONE OF PASTE'S BEST MEMOIRS OF THE DECADE • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF
THE YEAR BY Michiko Kakutani New York Times • USA Today • San Francisco Chronicle • NPR •
Esquire • Newsday • 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. Praise for Born a Crime Compelling . . . By turns alarming sad and funny
[Trevor Noah's] book provides a harrowing look through the prism of Mr. Noah's family at life
in South Africa under apartheid. . . . Born a Crime is not just an unnerving account of growing
up in South Africa under apartheid but a love letter to the author's remarkable
mother.-Michiko Kakutani The New York Times
