Format: Paperback

Condition: New

Product dimensions: 304 pages, 8.24 X 5.56 X 0.67

Publishing Info: Doubleday Canada, 2019

Language: English

ISBN - 13: 9780385689243

 

The compelling, inspiring, and comically sublime New York Times bestseller about 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 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. 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.

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.

           
The eighteen personal essays collected here are by turns hilarious, dramatic, and deeply affecting. 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. His stories weave together to form a moving and searingly funny portrait of a boy making his way through a damaged world in a dangerous time, armed only with a keen sense of humor and a mother’s unconventional, unconditional love.

 

About the Author: Trevor Noah is the most famous comedian from Africa and is the host of the Emmy- and Peabody Award-winning The Daily Show on Comedy Central. Born in Johannesburg, South Africa to a black South African mother and a white European father, Noah has hosted numerous television shows, including South Africa's music, television, and film awards and two seasons of his own late-night talk show, Tonight with Trevor Noah. It's Trevor Noah: Born a Crime is his first work for young readers and is based on his New York Times bestseller Born a Crime: Stores from a South African Childhood. Visit him online at TrevorNoah.com and follow @TrevorNoah on Twitter and Instagram.

 

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