Must Read: Born a Crime by Trevor Noah

The brilliance of this gem of a book by Trevor Noah blew me away. What an amazing childhood and upbringing Trevor has had growing up in South Africa! Respect. He paints it in brilliant strokes and educates the reader on the history of this southern tip of Africa in lucid detail. It’s equal parts beautiful and excruciating and heart-wrenching and funny.

Discovering your identity and fitting into a social circle is a recurring theme throughout. On the streets, in school, in prison. There’s a strange lady in most of his public street photos to arouse minimal suspicion on account of how different he looked from his mother. That’s crazy. Even more crazy is his mother’s story, her independent streak, how she left her home, decided to have a child with a white Swiss dude, and then brought up the child during Apartheid. Getting her strength from Jesus.

His CD-burning and DJing experiences brought back memories from the early days of the Internet when I had my own PC assembly operation in high school. Baloney and mango pickle - only in South Africa.

A must read.