Biographies
by Trevor Noah
What if your birth broke the law?
Trevor Noah was born in Johannesburg in 1984 to a black Xhosa mother and a white Swiss father. Under apartheid, their relationship was a crime. His memoir is about growing up as living proof of that crime, raised by a mother who refused to be told what she couldn't do.
Hear a sample · read by Laura
As a small child Trevor was kept indoors much of the time, often at his grandmother's house in Soweto. If the authorities noticed a light-skinned child with a black family, he could be taken away. In public, even his own father had to keep his distance.
Trevor grew up with English and Xhosa and picked up Zulu, Afrikaans and more. He found that speaking someone's language told them he was one of them. He couldn't change the colour of his skin, he writes, but he could change how people saw it.
Patricia Noah refused to live by apartheid's limits. She took a secretarial course, found work in the city, and took Trevor to places black families weren't expected to go. She raised him as if nothing was off limits, even when the law said otherwise.
Noah writes that people love to say teaching a man to fish feeds him for life, and forget that he also needs a rod. As a teenager selling pirated CDs in Alexandra township, he had a computer. Many friends, just as sharp, had nothing to start with.
Born a crime
Trevor's birth broke the law, because apartheid banned a Black woman and a white man from having a child together.
His mother
His mother Patricia refused to let apartheid decide how small her life could be.
A free mind
She filled his life with books and trips across the city, so apartheid never boxed in his mind.
Language
He grew up speaking several languages and used them to fit in anywhere. Shared words mattered more than skin colour.
The fishing rod
Telling a poor man to work hard helps little. He also needs a first real chance and the tools to use it.
A story from the book
Once a group of young men walking behind Trevor discussed in Zulu how they would mug him, sure that he was white and couldn't understand. He turned round and answered in Zulu, suggesting they mug someone together. Startled, they apologised. They had thought he was white.
Hot take · true or myth?
Trevor always had a group where he fitted in.
Myth. He describes being an outsider almost everywhere. At high school he belonged to no group, so he made himself useful to all of them, buying snacks from the tuck shop for other pupils.
One thing to try
Noah's languages opened doors his skin colour closed. This week, learn how to say hello and thank you in the first language of someone you see often, like a neighbour, a shopkeeper or a classmate. Then use it with them.
Knotd has the key ideas from 250+ non-fiction books, each in a few minutes, in plain words. Born a Crime comes with a Hot Take round to make it stick.
Get the whole book on KnotdOpen in the appWhat if your birth broke the law? Trevor Noah was born in Johannesburg in 1984 to a black Xhosa mother and a white Swiss father. Under apartheid, their relationship was a crime. His memoir is about growing up as living proof of that crime, raised by a mother who refused to be told what she couldn't do.
Kept out of sight; The chameleon; A mother who wouldn't be told; Give him a rod.
Noah's languages opened doors his skin colour closed. This week, learn how to say hello and thank you in the first language of someone you see often, like a neighbour, a shopkeeper or a classmate. Then use it with them.
Yes. Knotd has the key ideas from Born a Crime in a few minutes, in plain words, plus a Hot Take round to test them. It's one of 250+ non-fiction books in the app.
