Born a Crime by Trevor Noah- Book Review

   

Born a Crime by Trevor Noah- Book Review

Title: Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood

Author: Trevor Noah

Publisher: Spiegel & Grau

Publish Date: November 15, 2016

Rating: 4.5/5

Summary(blurb): 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. 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. 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. 

**This book review contains spoilers for this book. If you still want to read the review, go ahead. However, I strongly recommend you to read this book before reading my review.

Trevor Noah, South African comedian and ex-host of the Daily Show, has been my entryway into the world of stand-up comedy. I discovered his Daily Show in 2022, and that led me to watch more of his comedy which gave me laughter. When I found that he had written an autobiography/memoir as well, I had to read it. The book centers on Trevor Noah's childhood and teenage years, and is written with bits of comedy gold scattered throughout. Having watched a lot of his comedy on Youtube, at some points I could even hear Trevor Noah's voice in the pages. 

As I've said, this book is Trevor's retelling of his childhood in South Africa. Trevor Noah was born a crime, literally-- his mother was black South African, and his father was a Swiss white man. To other blacks, he seemed white; to Americans, he seemed black. Trevor's memoir recounts his childhood, from his toddler life being hidden away due to his mixed-race status and apartheid to the beatings from his mother to his unique middle school drama to his DJing business to his family life. Trevor captures his childhood in eighteen chapters, each chapter a story from various eras of his life. Some stories I had heard of before from his shows, but most were completely new. Through a child's eyes, Trevor Noah described to me what racism and apartheid and segregation felt like, how he was still privileged within that group by being half white and half black, and how much of an impact Trevor's mother had on him. Well, in addition to how he was mischievousness incarnate and ran like the Flash and made people mistake his feces for a devil. Overall, Trevor Noah's book is as much of a tribute to his mother as it is about his own life. 

There are many underlying themes of this memoir, two of which stuck with me the most. 

The first is the power of language-- how much language can shape people's perceptions, and how language can be a unifying factor as easily as a divisive factor. 

Noah says in the book that "A shared language says “We’re the same.” A language barrier says “We’re different.”" Apartheid exploited that fact, separating the South Africans into tribes so they could not unify, effectively creating their version of the Tower of Babel incident. But Trevor learned many languages as he grew up, meaning that he could connect to many of the various groups he encountered. When he was about to be jumped by Zulu people, speaking Zulu to them instantly makes them his friends. He would 'simulcast' everyone's language back to them, and this would make him fit in wherever he was, a linguistic chameleon. He says that "My color didn’t change, but I could change your perception of my color [with language]... Maybe I didn’t look like you, but if I spoke like you, I was you." Here, a shared language was the battle ram that broke down tribal boundaries and unified people. It was the solution to racial problems (at least Trevor's solution). 

The second memorable theme was that being rich in experiences is just as good as material wealth-- although Trevor didn't grow up with a lot materially, he "never felt poor because [his] life [was] so rich with experience". 

For young Trevor, there was always something to do, something to play with, somewhere to go, imagination to be roused. There was little dullness and monotony-- he had fun, and every day was packed with new memories and experiences. Take a little photo of each of these, and boom, you've amassed a pile of tangible memories- mental USBs of sorts, that trigger memories within your brain. Each photo can take you back to a special event from decades ago, each note is a reminder of past conversations. 

However, one thing I didn't enjoy as much was how the stories skipped around chronologically. The book would start with Trevor and his younger brother, then transition to when he was three and Apartheid was around, then transition to his middle school crush days, then transition to his elementary school, then to his DJing and music business, then to hustling at a town nicknamed Gomorrah, then all the way back to when his younger brother was born, then jump forward nine years, et cetera. It was frankly confusing at times, and I would have preferred it if the book were in chronological order. 

In conclusion, this memoir is one of the most entertaining ones I've read, as well as one that prompted me to think a lot about race and language and true wealth. I would recommend this book for any level readers, especially since the book deals with important topics such as racism and inequality.

Rating: I would give this a 4.5/5. A great memoir and tribute to his mother, but the time-skips were a little confusing.