Born a crime

The memoir of one man's coming-of-age, set

during the twilight of apartheid and the tumultuous days of

freedom that followed.

Trevor Noah's unlikely path from apartheid South Africa to

the desk of The Daily Show began with a riminal 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 bya

centuries-long struggle.

Born a Crime is the story of a mischievous young boy who

grows intoa restless young man as he struggles to find

himself ina 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.