BOOK REVIEW: BORN A CRIME - STORIES FROM A SOUTH AFRICAN CHILDHOOD

BOOK TITLE: BORN A CRIME - STORIES FROM A SOUTH AFRICAN CHILDHOOD

AUTHOR: TREVOR NOAH
GENRE: AUTOBIOGRAPHY

REVIEW BY: NAIJATALKATIVE @NIMETUA

Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood is an autobiography written by the South African comedian Trevor Noah. The novel was published in 2016. It is a funny, honest collection that details the popular comedian’s coming of age in South Africa as apartheid ended.

Identified as a coloured citizen of South Africa, Trevor tells the story of growing up with his black Xhosa mother and white Swiss father. At the time of his birth, it was a crime to engage in carnal interracial relationships. The crime was punishable by death, imprisonment or deportation. The law was put in place to prevent the mixing of Europeans and natives as this would only shake the balance between the rich minority and the poor majority. 

Trevor wrote the book so vividly and makes all the incidents seem like they happened right in front of one's eyes. Personally, I believe Born a Crime: Stories from a South African childhood is a great story. The shock, excitement, and desire to find out more made the book so hard to stop reading.

The memoir is an exposė of how an unjust governance system had consequences on personal and family relations. It’s highly humorous narration, helping ease out some sad and infuriating elements of the story. A story of conquest; Noah overcomes childhood and teenhood poverty and crime to become the star that he is today.

About the Book

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.