Griot, in West Africa, is a poet or storyteller who is in charge of keeping the oral history of the village. When a griot dies, it's like a library burnt down, they say.
I have finished reading Born A Crime by Trevor Noah and was mesmerised by the art of storytelling in it.
Trevor Noah is a mixed-race South African comedian. In apartheid South Africa, being born to a white father and a black woman meant a crime was committed. Noah tells stories of his life—funny, sad, and very humanistic. Most of these stories talk about the individual, but they represent a digest of the history of a country and its communities.
The book cover shows what looks like a poster of a smiling Trevor Noah with a black woman walking in front of this giant poster. Inside the book you are laughing with this man as you relive his adventures, and as his mother walks through those stories.
The first story in the book was about a 9-year-old boy, his baby brother and mum jumping out of a moving minibus. It sounds dangerous and exciting, but there is more to it. For us readers from around the world, it is hard to understand the history of a society, but you can understand a story and the context within it. Trevor's mum is Xhosa, a tribe in South Africa; he is mixed race, meaning the mother had a relationship with a white man; the bus driver was Zulu, a rival tribe. Now, there is the history of apartheid, the stereotyping of women in general and Xhosa women, the patriarchal society of the country, the poverty, and much more, all crammed into one simple and funny adventure of a 9-year-old boy. How you tell such a story, how you convey the message, is real art.
As each story moved on, I could easily predict where it was heading, see the ending from a mile away, yet I would still sit in my corner, captive to the storyteller as he goes on telling his story. The stories are so different but I can easily relate to them—weird and wonderful, alien and human, not about me, but they could be me, because he (the storyteller) made me part of the story. I was listening to Trevor's stories, painting the scenes in my mind, putting myself inside the story, watching and listening to the storyteller and to all the surroundings, the characters, the drama, and most importantly, the history.
I finished the book and was more informed about domestic violence, why poverty breeds poverty, why South Africa is struggling, and many more things. I learnt a lot from those stories—a lot about Trevor Noah and a lot about South Africa, also a lot about myself and humanity. Strangely, the main thing I learnt from this book is how to be a good storyteller, so your story is known, your suffering, history and what is holding your future come out to everyone while they are paying attention.
Ahmad Baker
