Comedian Trevor Noah’s unlikely path from apartheid* South Africa to the desk of “The Daily Show” began with a criminal act: his birth. Noah was born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother at a time when such a union was punishable by five years in prison. Living proof of his parents’ indiscretion*, Noah was kept mostly indoors for the earliest years of his life, bound by the extreme and often absurd measures his mother took to hide him from a government that could, at any moment, steal him away. Finally liberated by the end of South Africa’s tyrannical* white rule, Noah and his mother set forth on a grand adventure, living openly and freely and embracing the opportunities won by a centuries-long struggle.

“Born a Crime” is the story of a mischievous* young boy who grows into a restless young man as he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist.

It is also the story of that young man’s relationship with his fearless, rebellious and fervently religious mother — his teammate, a woman determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence and abuse that would finally threaten her own life. The stories collected here are by turns hilarious*, dramatic and deeply affecting. Whether eating caterpillars for dinner during hard times, being thrown from a moving car during an attempted kidnapping*, or just trying to survive the life-and-death pitfalls* of dating in high school, Noah illuminates his curious world with an incisive wit and unflinching honesty. His stories weave together to form a moving and funny portrait of a boy making his way through a damaged world in a dangerous time, armed only with a keen sense of humor and a mother’s unconventional, unconditional love.(SD-Agencies)