A review by perry417
Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah

5.0

I'm having a hard time finding the right words to explain how remarkable this book is. One of the best books I read in all of 2016. Trevor Noah is a truly talented storyteller, using intelligence, humility, humor and a razor sharp sense of observation to weave together the stories from his childhood and early adulthood in South Africa. The title of this memoir refers to his very existence as proof of a crime under apartheid (sex between his black mother and white father). I am probably like most Americans who grew up in the 1980s -- aware of apartheid only in the broadest of brush strokes -- and I learned so much from this book. But that makes it seem like it is a history lesson or textbook, and that's not the case at all. This book is moving, smart, memorable, and highly readable.