Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah.

4/5 rating. 285 pages.

Book #48 of 2022. Read December 18, 2022.

This is an amazing memoir by Trevor about his childhood growing up in South Africa.

I thoroughly enjoyed all of Trevor’s stories in this book. He lived such an interesting life in such different circumstances than almost anyone else I’ve read. His experience of living through the end of apartheid, and into the new order rolled out after it was something that I had never really even thought about.

As always, Trevor is such a good storyteller and brings you into each story with humor and emotion. His constant, loving war with his mom, as well as all of the ingenious ways for him to survive as a coloured kid in a place where most people were either considered white or black were so entertaining.

Even as much of a hell-raiser as Trevor was as a kid, his good heart is always apparent. His upbringing was certainly never easy, but he had the right people around him sometimes at just the right time to make it through. As he says: “I was wanted. Being chosen is the greatest gift you can give to another human being.”

I definitely would recommend reading this incredibly entertaining book!

Quotes:

“The [Afrikan] set up a formal commission to go out and study institutionalized racism all over the world. They went to Australia. They went to the Netherlands. They went to America. They saw what worked, what didn’t. Then they came back and published a report, and the government used that knowledge to build the most advanced system of racial oppression known to man.”

“That’s how a police state works – everyone thinks everyone else is the police.”

“We tell people to follow their dreams, but you can only dream of what you can imagine, and, depending on where you come from, your imagination can be quite limited.”

“The whole issue of Santa Claus is a rather contentious one when it comes to African Christmas, a matter of pride. When an African dad buys his kid a present, the last thing he’s going to do is give some fat white man credit for it.”

“Relationships are built in the silences. You spend time with people, you observe them and interact with them, and you come to know them-“

“We spend so much time being afraid of failure, afraid of rejection. But regret is the thing we should fear most.”

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