Trevor Noah

Born A Crime

You gotta listen to it! Trevor Noah narrates his autobiography in an absolutely hilarious and touching way. He combines funny stories of growing up in South Africa with the severe effects that apartheid had on his life as the son of a black mother and white father – literally a crime. Personal and witty, he recounts childhood pranks, kidnapping attempts, days spent at church, and all the other likely and unlikely experiences that made up his childhood and coming-of-age. And in parallel, he teaches us a lot about South African history and culture. Absolutely inspiring and moving!

“Sometimes in big Hollywood movies they’ll have these crazy chase scenes where somebody jumps or gets thrown from a moving car. The person hits the ground and rolls for a bit. Then they come to a stop and pop up and dust themselves off, like it was no big deal. Whenever I see that I think, That’s rubbish. Getting thrown out of a moving car hurts worse than that.

I was nine years old when my mother threw me out of a moving car. It happened on a Sunday. I know it was on a Sunday because we were coming home from church, and every Sunday in my childhood meant church. We never missed church. My mother was – and still is – a deeply religious woman. Very Christian. Like indigenous peoples around the world, black Southern African adopted the religion of our colonizers. By “adopt” I mean it was forced on us. The white man was quite stern with the native. “You need to pray to Jesus,” he said. “Jesus will save you.” To which the native replied, “Well, we do need to be saved – saved from you, but that’s beside the point. So let’s give this Jesus thing a shot.””