BORN A CRIME by Trevor Noah

What an incredible memoir! In this book, Trevor Noah shares his difficult experiences growing up in the final years of apartheid, a system of racial segregation, that existed in South Africa unfortunately not even that long ago.

Being the son of a white Swiss-German father and a black Xhosa mother, as a “coloured” child he’s always struggled with belonging within the continuous and challenging race relations between whites and blacks at the time.

Even though he’s encountered gang violence, domestic violence, petty crime, bullying and poverty, his mother proved to be the dominant, remarkable force throughout his life.

The strength and willpower of his mother is incredibly touching, constantly striving to ingrain deep educational, religious and freedom-embracing values in Trevor:

“She was preparing me to live a life of freedom long before we knew freedom would exist.”

Truly an eye-opener for how a life can be influenced so much simply by the colour of your skin. A must read that will go straight to your heart!

“We tell people to follow their dreams, but you can only dream of what you can imagine, and, depending on where you come from, your imagination can be quite limited.”

“The traditional man wants a woman to be subservient, but he never falls in love with subservient women. He’s attracted to independent women. “He’s like an exotic bird collector,” she said. “He only wants a woman who is free because his dream is to put her in a cage.”