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Book Review of Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood

Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood
esjro avatar reviewed on + 947 more book reviews


This book is wonderful. It made me laugh out loud and made me cry in the same chapter. Trevor Noah intersperses brief spurts of information on the history and policies of apartheid with anecdotes from his own life growing up in South Africa. He mentions his comedy career only briefly as the stories are from his childhood and very young adult life. It is heartbreaking to read about the conditions Trevor and his mother lived in, yet this book is also a story about how love can allow one to rise above their circumstances.

I hope that there is a follow up book to this, because his work on The Daily Show only hints at what an intelligent, sensitive, and funny person Trevor Noah is.