Flashcards for Born a Crime

Abel

Abel is Patricia Noah's second husband and Trevor's stepfather, representing the memoir's most painful example of domestic violence and the ongoing trauma it generates.

character

Andrew

Andrew is Trevor Noah's younger half-brother in Born a Crime, Trevor Noah's memoir.

character

Bongani

Bongani is Trevor Noah's resourceful friend from Soweto and informal business partner, making a strong impression during the chapters that explore Trevor's teenage hustle in the late 1990s and early 2000s. He plays a key role in Trevor's entrepreneurial awakening, introducing him to township commerce—burning and selling pirated CDs, organizing street parties, and eventually starting a small DJ business in their neighborhood.

character

Fufi

Fufi is Trevor Noah's cherished white Swiss shepherd dog in Born a Crime, representing love, ownership, loyalty, and the complex pain of attachment.

character

God (as a recurring presence in Patricia's faith)

In Trevor Noah's memoir Born a Crime, God appears less as a conventional character and more as a vibrant, constant force seen primarily through Patricia Nombuyiselo Noah's unwavering faith.

character

Grandfather Noah

Grandfather Noah is a minor but symbolically significant character in Trevor Noah's memoir Born a Crime.

character

Grandmother Frances (Gogo)

Grandmother Frances, affectionately known as Gogo, is the matriarch of the Noah family in Trevor Noah's memoir Born a Crime.

character

Hitler (Trevor's friend)

Hitler is a childhood friend of Trevor Noah's from the Alexandra township, serving as a minor yet memorable character in Born a Crime.

character

Isaac

Isaac is Trevor Noah's maternal uncle and one of the more unpredictable adults in the Noah household featured in Born a Crime.

character

Patricia Nombuyiselo Noah

Patricia Nombuyiselo Noah serves as the moral and narrative backbone of Born a Crime, Trevor's memoir detailing his experiences growing up mixed-race during and after apartheid in South Africa.

character

Robert Noah

Robert Noah is Trevor's biological father, a Swiss-German man whose relationship with Patricia Nombuyiselo Noah was deemed illegal under apartheid South Africa's Immorality Act, which banned sexual relations between racial groups.

character

Trevor Noah

Trevor Noah serves as the narrator, protagonist, and emotional heart of Born a Crime (2016), his memoir about growing up mixed-race during and after apartheid in South Africa.

character

“We tell people to follow their dreams, but you can only dream of what you can imagine, and, depending on where you come from, your imagination can be quite limited.”

This reflective observation comes from Trevor Noah in his memoir Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016).

Trevor Noah (narrator/author)

“She never stopped fighting, and she never stopped believing.”

This line comes from Trevor Noah's memoir Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016), where he reflects on his mother, Patricia Nombuyiselo Noah.

Trevor Noah (narrator)

“The hood made me realize that crime succeeds because crime does the one thing the government doesn't do: crime cares.”

This quote is taken from Trevor Noah's memoir Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016), where he shares his experiences growing up in the townships of post-apartheid South Africa.

Trevor Noah (narrative voice)

“I was born a crime. My mother was a criminal. My father was a criminal.”

This opening declaration comes from Trevor Noah in his 2016 memoir Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood.

Trevor Noah (narrator) · Prologue / Chapter 1 – Run

“Love is a verb. It is not just a feeling. It is something you do.”

This line is from Trevor Noah's memoir Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016) and is credited to his mother, Patricia Nombuyiselo Noah.

Patricia Nombuyiselo Noah (Trevor's mother)

“Apartheid was a police state, a system of surveillance and control.”

This line is from Trevor Noah's 2016 memoir Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood.

Trevor Noah (narrator/author)

“My mother used to tell me, 'I chose to have you because I wanted something that was mine, that I could love and that would love me back unconditionally.'”

This quote is from Trevor Noah's memoir Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016), spoken by his mother, Patricia Nombuyiselo Noah, as Trevor recounts.

Patricia Nombuyiselo Noah (Trevor's mother)

“The genius of apartheid was convincing people who were the overwhelming majority to turn on each other.”

This line comes from Trevor Noah's 2016 memoir Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood.

Trevor Noah (author/narrator)

“My mother's greatest gift to me was to show me that I was not defined by the circumstances of my birth.”

This reflection comes from Trevor Noah's memoir Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016).

Trevor Noah (narrator)

Crime and Survival

In Born a Crime, Trevor Noah's very existence under apartheid South Africa's Immorality Act—where being a mixed-race child of a Black Zulu mother and a white Swiss father was literally considered a crime—turns "crime" into a powerful symbol of systemic oppression and the fierce determination to overcome it.

Food

In Trevor Noah's memoir Born a Crime, food symbolizes love, survival, and the complicated negotiations that come with poverty.

Language

In Born a Crime, Trevor Noah's memoir about his childhood in apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa, language represents power, identity, and survival.

The Church

In Born a Crime, Trevor Noah's memoir about his mixed-race upbringing in apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa, the Church serves as both a refuge and a source of contradiction.

Trevor's Mixed-Race Appearance

In Trevor Noah's memoir Born a Crime, his mixed-race background—being the son of a Black Xhosa mother and a white Swiss father in apartheid South Africa—serves as a powerful representation of the contradictions and violence inherent in racial classification.

Tone

Trevor Noah's tone in Born a Crime stands out as one of the memoir's most striking and impactful features: he doesn't allow the horrors of apartheid South Africa to remain solely horrific.

Satire

In Born a Crime, Trevor Noah uses satire not just to mock from a distance but as a way to survive, employing absurd humor to highlight the twisted logic of apartheid South Africa.

Flashback

In Born a Crime, Trevor Noah weaves his memoir using layered flashbacks that seamlessly transition between his childhood during apartheid and the period right after, creating a dual perspective of innocence and later understanding.

Allusion

In Born a Crime, Trevor Noah weaves allusions throughout his personal memoir to enhance its historical and cultural significance.

Imagery

In Born a Crime, Trevor Noah uses striking sensory imagery to bring the textures of apartheid-era and post-apartheid South Africa to life.

Juxtaposition

In Born a Crime, Trevor Noah uses juxtaposition as a key method to highlight the absurdities of apartheid South Africa.

Irony

In Born a Crime, Trevor Noah uses irony as a key element throughout his memoir.

apartheid

The South African government system of strict racial segregation enforced by law from 1948 to the early 1990s, which classified people by race and controlled where they could live, work, and travel.

noun · Chapter 2

coloured

In South African legal and social usage, a specific official racial classification for people of mixed racial ancestry — not a general or interchangeable term for any non-white person.

adjective · Chapter 2

township

An underdeveloped urban residential area on the outskirts of a South African city, created under apartheid to house non-white populations, typically with poor infrastructure and high poverty.

noun · Chapter 1

immorality act

A South African apartheid-era law that made sexual relations or marriage between people of different racial classifications a criminal offence.

noun · Chapter 2

homeland

One of the territories set aside by the apartheid government as nominally self-governing reserves for Black South Africans of specific ethnic groups, intended to strip them of South African citizenship.

noun · Chapter 2

shebeen

An unlicensed, informal drinking establishment, common in South African townships, where alcohol is sold and consumed, often out of someone's home.

noun · Chapter 1

lobola

A traditional southern African practice in which the groom's family pays the bride's family a negotiated bride price, typically in cattle or money, as part of the marriage process.

noun · Chapter 5

Xhosa

A Bantu language spoken by the Xhosa people of South Africa, one of the country's eleven official languages, notable for its click consonants.

noun · Chapter 3

Zulu

A Bantu language spoken by the Zulu people, one of South Africa's largest ethnic groups and official languages, used throughout the book as a marker of ethnic and cultural identity.

noun · Chapter 3

Afrikaans

A language derived from Dutch, spoken by Afrikaner and Coloured communities in South Africa, and used as one of the official languages of the apartheid government.

noun · Chapter 2

chameleon

Used here figuratively to describe a person who can shift between different racial, cultural, or linguistic groups without being firmly claimed by or belonging to any one of them.

noun · Chapter 4

hustle

An informal or semi-legal scheme for making money, often involving street-level trading, reselling, or entrepreneurial improvisation outside formal employment.

noun · Chapter 14

tuck shop

A small informal shop or kiosk, often run from a home or a corner of a building, selling snacks, sweets, and basic goods — common in South African townships and schools.

noun · Chapter 9

braai

A South African barbecue, typically involving grilling meat over an open wood or charcoal fire; a deeply embedded social and cultural tradition across racial groups in South Africa.

noun · Chapter 14

sangoma

A traditional southern African healer or diviner who uses ancestral spirits, herbal medicine, and ritual to diagnose illness and misfortune — distinct from a Western medical doctor.

noun · Chapter 17

tithe

A tenth of one's income given as a contribution to a church, presented here as a religious obligation that the family takes seriously even when money is scarce.

noun · Chapter 3

Pentecostal

Relating to a branch of Protestant Christianity that emphasises direct personal experience of God, speaking in tongues, faith healing, and enthusiastic, expressive worship services.

adjective · Chapter 3

pass laws

Apartheid-era regulations requiring Black South Africans to carry an internal passport called a passbook at all times, controlling their movement between designated areas.

noun · Chapter 2

rand

The basic unit of South African currency, used throughout the book when discussing money, prices, and economic hardship.

noun · Chapter 9

spaza shop

A small informal convenience store run from a private home in a South African township, selling everyday household goods and food at the neighbourhood level.

noun · Chapter 14

DJ

Here used specifically for someone who plays and mixes recorded music at parties and events for money — the role Trevor pursues as a teenage entrepreneurial venture.

noun · Chapter 14

kaffir

An extremely offensive racial slur in South Africa used to dehumanise Black people; the book discusses it to show the violence of apartheid-era language and racism.

noun · Chapter 2

boer

Literally 'farmer' in Afrikaans; used historically and colloquially to refer to Afrikaner white South Africans, and in some contexts to white authority figures or police.

noun · Chapter 2

mixed race

Describing a person born to parents of different racial classifications; under apartheid this was a legally and socially fraught identity that determined one's rights and daily life.

adjective · Chapter 2

minibus taxi

A privately owned minivan that operates as informal public transport in South Africa, following set routes but without fixed schedules, and central to how township residents travel.

noun · Chapter 1