Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood

“Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood” is Trevor Noah’s autobiography from his days as a young kid, a confused teenager and an adult in apartheid South Africa. Through the book, Trevor Noah, talks about what were the rules in apartheid governance for black, whites, colored and Indian people and how these rules affected him as a person and the South African society. Born in 1984, Trevor gives a good account on how South African society changed when the apartheid in South Africa ended in 1991. Even though there are other books like the biography on Elon Musk and Fire in Babylon, which talk about the racial practices in apartheid South Africa, Trevor’s biography really talks about the actual struggles faced by common people in such a racially biased landscape.

Racial discrimination and apartheid sound like serious words and it might seem like the book might be a heavy read. On the contrary, Trevor has written the book in an easy going flow with a lot of humor put in. Even though he communicates well how rules were discriminatory in nature for different people based on color of skin, he doesn’t assert that he was hard done by such rules. Trevor Noah, as a child was a mischievous kid and he writes about how his mischiefs were a source of great pain to his mother and his extended family. Through the adult years, Trevor records his struggles with his racial identification owing to his mixed skin color, his challenges while dating and the void caused by absence of a father figure while growing up. He also mentions how he successfully ran a kind of startup of pirated music from his personal computer to meet his expenses. Throughout the book, Trevor mentions how his mother was a constant source of strength and how she ensured Trevor could make out of the apartheid-torned culture to be a successful celebrity that he is today. In the last chapter of the book, the author writes about the domestic abuse that his mother and him underwent at the hands of his step-father. It is truly a heart wrenching account of continuous ignorance of police and family members about a serious issue of domestic abuse that nearly cost his mother’s life in a gun shootout.

Throughout the book, Trevor Noah writes about interesting ironies and realties of life. Some of my favorite excerpts from his book which made me think deeply about life book are following:-

“People love to say, “Give a man a fish, and he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he’ll eat for a lifetime.” What they don’t say is, “And it would be nice if you gave him a fishing rod.” That’s the part of the analogy that’s missing.”

“We spend so much time being afraid of failure, afraid of rejection. But regret is the thing we should fear most. Failure is an answer. Rejection is an answer. Regret is an eternal question you will never have the answer to.”

“Trevor, remember a man is not determined by how much he earns. You can still be a man of the house and earn less than your woman. Being a man is not what you have, it's who you are. Being more of a man doesn't mean your woman has to be less than you.”

“My mom did what school didn't. She taught me how to think.”

Trevor Noah has written the book in a very interesting style. Each chapter of the book has a precursor page in which he has thrown in interesting facts about apartheid. The South Africa apartheid constitution was formed after meticulously aggregating the racial practices around the world. There were very strict punishments in place if a white person were to have a relationship with a black person and vice-versa. Most of the black people stayed in allocated areas, which were mostly slums, and were not allowed to venture into the prosperous and wealthy areas owned by white people. The black people could be apprehended by the police at any point in time for no good reason. These racial practices make us realize that how lucky are we to have a life full of liberty and independence and helps to sympathize with people like Trevor Noah who had seen such miserable and difficult times for no fault of theirs.