Bedtime Biography: Born a Crime summary

We begin our story not too long ago, but in a world governed by very different rules.

Trevor Noah was born in Johannesburg in 1984. At that time, South Africa was still under apartheid – a rigid and convoluted system of racial oppression and segregation.

What’s remarkable about Patricia’s choice to have a child with a white man is that she couldn’t have known – nobody could have – that apartheid would end just a few years later. It wasn’t only risky for her to have an interracial affair with a white man, it was risky to even be seen with her own son – Trevor’s lighter skin led people to believe he was of a different race. And that would simply raise too many questions. 

When walking down the street in Johannesburg with her own little boy, Patricia would often have a lighter-skinned neighbor accompany her. They’d pretend that the neighbor was Trevor’s mother. Even now, when Trevor Noah looks through old photo albums, he’s amused to see many photographs of himself as a toddler with this neighbor. His mother is trailing behind, appearing to photobomb each picture.

Much of Trevor’s early life was marked by poverty. He was raised by a single mother, in a state that actively oppressed Black people. There was little food; often, they’d have to eat caterpillars to survive.  

During school holidays, Trevor stayed at his grandmother's two-room house. There, he slept on the floor along with his mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, aunt, uncle, and cousins. There was no indoor plumbing. 

In 1990, Nelson Mandela was freed from his life sentence. Trevor remembers watching it on television; everyone was happy, but he didn’t understand why. A year later, right around the time Trevor burned down the house, apartheid officially came to an end. 

But this triumph merely signaled the beginning of a whole new range of problems. Post-apartheid South Africa was a difficult territory to navigate, particularly for Black people. 

Trevor also navigated his own way through post-apartheid South Africa by tapping into his ability with languages. At the time, there were eleven official languages in the country. Trevor set about learning several, which helped him more than once. On one occasion, he overheard a gang of approaching Zulu boys discussing their plan to mug him. Before they got to him, he piped up in Zulu and suggested they attack someone else. Shocked that he spoke Zulu, they left him alone.

Being a polyglot also helped him during the pains of puberty. Adolescence is uncomfortable for anyone, but it didn’t help that Trevor was prone to acne, nor that his family’s impoverished status meant he never had the right clothes. But Trevor had the language skills; he didn’t have to limit himself to one social group and soon grew adept at floating between them. 

A big part of why we know of Trevor Noah today is because he managed to avoid falling into a cycle of crime and punishment. His career took off quickly in his early twenties – but even then there was still trouble at home, and his family still lived in poverty.

Abel and Patricia were married for several years and had two children together, but the relationship soon became abusive. Though charming, Abel was also an alcoholic who could get violent when he was drunk. 

You’ve reached the end of this Bedtime Biography. Thank you for listening. Why not pause listening now so you can stay in a relaxed state? And if you’re off to bed now, I wish you a good night’s sleep.