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Aug 11, 2017

Comedy Central must have really done its research and as a member of its audience I thank them for introducing us to Trevor Noah. To get a comedian all the way from South Africa, an unknown face to most of the American public, as the presenter of a headlining show is a gamble they took. I hope it will pan out for the both Noah and the network. With two years under his belt The Daily Show hosted by Trevor Noah is slowly inching up in the ratings chart and holding it steady after an initial slow year.

Reading his memoir, Born a Crime, I am all for team Noah and want him to be successful. The man has come a long way from his humble South African beginnings. The book was an eye-opening introduction to what is like to grow up straddled on the race fence in South Africa during apartheid (albeit it was in its final descent.)

As a child of a forbidden union, a secret child who needed to be kept invisible and then later on as a young man who defied categorization and racial profiles, Noah's a staggeringly mind-blowing journey. From the teen hustler churning out copied CDs in the slums of Soweto to the interesting new face chosen to replaced the legendary Jon Stewart, it almost seems like an impossible hop.

Noah dedicates his memoir to his mother, "For my mother. My first fan. Thank you for making me a man." An extraordinary woman in an extraordinary time, she chose to have Noah because she wanted a child, her child, who will have everything she didn't have. She did not have Noah to consummate her marriage. For there was none between her - a South African Xhosa woman and his Swiss-German father who was twenty years her senior. In a way, Trevor Noah and the way she brought him up was her raising the middle finger against apartheid and boy, I am sure he has made her proud!

Born a crime is a powerful account of coming of age in a historically important time and place, lived through and written by one of the astute commentators on society and culture of our times. Definitely worth a read.

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