As host of ‘The Daily Show,’ Trevor Noah comes across as a wry, startled and sometimes outraged outsider, commenting on the absurdities of American li
As host of ‘The Daily Show,’ Trevor Noah comes across as a wry, startled and sometimes outraged outsider, commenting on the absurdities of American life using comedy but his raw account of life under apartheid in South Africa as penned down in the all telling compelling memoir are less the polished anecdotes of a comedian, underscoring the absurdities of life under apartheid. It is a 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, Noah recalls that the only time he could be with his 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.”
The memoir is not just an unnerving account of growing up in South Africa under apartheid, but a love letter to Noah’s remarkable mother who determined that her son would grow up successful.
