Trevor Noah

Trevor Noah

Trevor Noah was born in Johannesburg (South Africa) in 1984. All biographies begin like this, with the date and place of birth, but in this case these two factors marked his childhood, his career and his life. His mother was black, of the Xhosa ethnicity, and his father, white and of European origin. They fell in love in the middle of Apartheid, so, from his very birth Noah was a child prohibited by law, the result of a banned interracial relationship. There he started a life of hardship and ability to hide and escape. After seeking life by trading with pirated CDs and small loans, he began his artistic career in South African television. In 2011 he moved to the United States and his career became a supernova. He was the first South African comedian to perform a monologue on The Tonight Show and to appear on the Late Show with David Letterman. He starred in the documentary You Laugh But It’s True and defended the stand-up The Racist on the boards. In December 2014, Noah became a fixed contributor to The Daily Show, but the surprise came when Jon Stewart, its host, named him successor in September 2015. Since then Noah has become one of the best-known faces of the more acidic American political satire and, more recently, in one of the best scourges of Donald Trump. His book of children's memories, Forbidden to be born, which dazzled The New York Times critic Michiko Kakutani, shows that he is also a tender, funny, hard and very promising writer.