Trevor Noah Wins 2017 Thurber Prize for American Humor

At a ceremony at Carolines on Broadway in New York City on October 2, 2017, Trevor Noah was awarded the 2017 Thurber Prize for American Humor for his memoir, Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood. He receives $5,000, a commemorative plaque, and is invited to Thurber House in Columbus, Ohio as a featured guest at a special event.

Trevor Noah's unlikely path from apartheid South AFRICA to the desk of THE DAILY SHOW began with a criminal act: his birth. Trevor 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, Trevor 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.

The stories collected here are by turns hilarious, dramatic, and deeply affecting. Whether subsisting on 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, Trevor illuminates his curious world with an incisive wit and unflinching honesty. Noah's stories weave together to form a moving and searingly 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.

The runners up for the Thurber Prize are Aaron Thier for "Mr. Eternity" and Ken Pisani for "Amp'd"

Source and image: thurberhouse.org

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