Born a Crime is an autobiography of Trevor Noah. It’s a story of a boy living in South Africa. And all the wonderful and terrible things he had gone through.
For a long time, I believed biography books to be the most interesting ones. Especially considering the fact that they’re about real life. And this book proved I’m right.
Background of the reader
However, I’m also sure that this book was particularly interesting to me because I’ve never faced serious problems in my life. I’m 90’s kid, born in central Europe. I have a loving family, my hometown is safe and I never experienced any life-threatening acts in my life. But I do know not everyone lives like that. I’m aware that up to this day, many people have to go through terrible things in their lives. Mostly because of who they are or where they live. But when you follow the news, you know just particular scenes of some people’s lives. You have no idea what the whole picture looks like. And this book is the whole picture of Trevor Noah’s life.
Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
Since the first pages of Born a Crime book, I was awed. After reading a couple more pages, I was awed again. And again. And again.
I was awed because of the incredibly terrifying things Trevor and his mom went through. I was also amazed how he can look back at it and write about his childhood with a good dose of humor. It could have been a depressive book. But it’s awesome instead.
What was the most eye-opening and new to me is the incredibly difficult life of a colored kid. When you’re neither black nor white and therefore you don’t know where you belong to.
Also, even though I know human rights, and especially women’s rights, are sensitive topics in the whole world even now, it was difficult to read about how those rights were abused in Trevor’s life.
What also made me furious when reading this book was the authorities and the fact of how unjust the justice system is. Of course, I don’t live in a perfect bubble myself. The authorities in my country are not perfect too. But just the fact that they can be so fucked up was unbelievable.
Well, and besides all that, it was very interesting to learn about the quite different family traditions, different ways people live, and a different world where Hitler is just a casual name.
Read it if you can!
I’m not going to spoil the plot of the book tho. But if you’re looking to see things from a different perspective, I highly suggest you read this book. Born a Crime by Trevor Noah is very well-written. It’s an interesting story of a sad but still joyful childhood and teenage years of Trevor himself.
Oh, and reading about all those things he experienced and reminding myself he’s just a decade older than me was terrifying. But hopefully, the more we’ll know about what’s going on and what some people are going through, the better we’ll be ourselves. And little by little the whole world will become a better place.
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