Born A Crime

"You'd be hard pressed to find a comic's origin story better than the one Trevor Noah serves up in Born a Crime. . . . He developed his aptitude for witty truth telling [and]…every hardscrabble memory of helping his mother scrape together money for food, gas, school fees, and rent, or barely surviving the temper of his stepfather, Abel, reveals the anxious wellsprings of the comedian's ambition and success. If there is harvest in spite of blight, the saying goes, one does not credit the blight but Noah does manage to wring brilliant comedy from it." -The Oprah Magazine

"What makes Born a Crime such a soul nourishing pleasure, even with all its darker edges and perilous turns, is reading Noah recount in brisk, warmly conversational prose how he learned to negotiate his way through the bullying and ostracism. . . . What also helped was having a mother like Patricia Nombuyiselo Noah. . . . Consider Born a Crime another such gift to her—and an enormous gift to the rest of us." -USA Today

"Noah thrives with the help of his astonishingly fearless mother. . . . Their fierce bond makes this story soar." -People

"This isn't your average comic writes a memoir It's a unique look at a man who is a product of his culture and a nuanced look at a part of the world whose people have known dark times easily pushed aside." -Refinery29

""Noah's memoir is extraordinary . . . essential reading on every level. It's hard to imagine anyone else doing a finer job of it." -The Seattle Times

"Powerful prose . . . told through stories and vignettes that are sharply observed, deftly conveyed and consistently candid. Growing organically from them is an affecting investigation of identity, ethnicity, language, masculinity, nationality and, most of all, humanity all issues that the election of Donald Trump in the United States shows are foremost in minds and hearts everywhere. . . . What the reader gleans are the insights that made Noah the thoughtful, observant, empathic man who wrote Born a Crime. . . . Here is a level headed man, forged by remarkable and shocking life incidents, who is quietly determined and who knows where home and the heart lie. Would this unique story have been published had it been about someone not a celebrity of the planet? Possibly not, and to the detriment of potential readers, because this is a warm and very human story of the type that we will need to survive the Trump presidency's imminent freezing of humane values." -Mail & Guardian (South Africa)

" Noah's story of surviving and thriving is mind blowing." -Cosmopolitan

"A gifted storyteller, able to deftly lace his poignant tales with amusing irony." -Entertainment Weekly