Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood, by Trevor Noah
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The results are in! The winner of our poll - and the book we will discuss on October 8, 2025 - is Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood, by Trevor Noah. We used STAR Voting again this month, and twenty-three members voted in the poll. Of our four book choices, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone and Born a Crime received the most stars in the scoring round and advanced to the runoff round. In the runoff round, six people ranked the finalists equally; Maybe You Should Talk to Someone received eight votes and Born a Crime received nine votes. Thank you to everyone who voted!
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#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • 2017 THURBER PRIZE FOR AMERICAN HUMOR • 2017 NAACP IMAGE AWARD FOR DEBUT AUTHOR AND FOR BIOGRAPHY / AUTO-BIOGRAPHY • NAMED ONE OF THE “BEST BOOKS OF 2017” BY THE NEW YORK TIMES, USA TODAY, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, NEWSDAY, ESQUIRE, NPR, AND BOOKLIST
Trevor Noah’s unlikely path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of The Daily Show began with a criminal act: his birth. Trevor was born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother at a time when such a union was punishable by five years in prison. Living proof of his parents’ indiscretion, Trevor was kept mostly indoors for the earliest years of his life, bound by the extreme and often absurd measures his mother took to hide him from a government that could, at any moment, steal him away. Finally liberated by the end of South Africa’s tyrannical white rule, Trevor and his mother set forth on a grand adventure, living openly and freely and embracing the opportunities won by a centuries-long struggle.
Born a Crime is the story of a mischievous young boy who grows into a restless young man as he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist. It is also the story of that young man’s relationship with his fearless, rebellious, and fervently religious mother—his teammate, a woman determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence, and abuse that would ultimately threaten her own life.
The stories collected here are by turns hilarious, dramatic, and deeply affecting. Whether subsisting on caterpillars for dinner during hard times, being thrown from a moving car during an attempted kidnapping, or just trying to survive the life-and-death pitfalls of dating in high school, Trevor illuminates his curious world with an incisive wit and unflinching honesty. His stories weave together to form a moving and searingly funny portrait of a boy making his way through a damaged world in a dangerous time, armed only with a keen sense of humor and a mother’s unconventional, unconditional love.
— description from the publisher Random House
“By turns alarming, sad and funny . . . not just an unnerving account of growing up in South Africa under apartheid, but a love letter to the author’s remarkable mother.” — Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
“Noah’s childhood stories are told with all the hilarity and intellect that characterizes his comedy, while illuminating a dark and brutal period in South Africa’s history that must never be forgotten.” — Esquire
“[Noah’s] electrifying memoir sparkles with funny stories . . . and his candid and compassionate essays deepen our perception of the complexities of race, gender, and class.” — Booklist (starred review)
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Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood, by Trevor Noah