Life with the legacy of apartheid:
Born a Crime: Stories from a
South African Childhood
By Trevor Noah

(Note from JANE SCHOLZ:  I listened to the audio
book which is read by Trevor Noah.  It really brings
an immediacy to this powerful story. I've included a
link to a page with the audio sample below. I highly
recommend the audio if you have access.)

Excerpted from "Born a Crime, Trevor Noah's Raw
Account of Life Under Apartheid," Books of the Times

By Michiko Kakutani
New York Times

By turns alarming, sad and funny, his book provides a harrowing look, through the prism of Mr. Noah’s family, at life in South Africa under apartheid and the country’s lurching entry into a postapartheid era in the 1990s. Some stories will be familiar to fans who have followed the author’s stand-up act. But his accounts here are less the polished anecdotes of a comedian underscoring the absurdities of life under apartheid, than raw, deeply personal reminiscences about being “half-white, half-black” in a country where his birth “violated any number of laws, statutes and regulations.”

The son of a Xhosa mother and a Swiss-German father, Mr. Noah recalls that “the only time I could be with my father was indoors”: “If we left the house, he’d have to walk across the street from us.” It was dangerous, as a light-skinned child, to be seen with his mother as well: “She would hold my hand or carry me, but if the police showed up she would have to drop me and pretend I wasn’t hers.”

He spent much of his time at home: “I didn’t have any friends. I didn’t know any kids besides my cousins. I wasn’t a lonely kid — I was good at being alone. I’d read books, play with the toy that I had, make up imaginary worlds. I lived inside my head. To this day you can leave me alone for hours and I’m perfectly happy entertaining myself. I have to remember to be with people.”
Read more.                                 
                              
                                                    Listen to a sample.