Rootsby Alex Haley | |
| List(s): | "Carp 500" |
|---|---|
| Category: |
"Fiction - Historical" |
| Pages: | 688 |
| Year of Publication: | 1976 |
| Date Read: | 06/30/1997 |
| Notes: | When he was a boy, Alex Haley’s grandmother used to tell him stories about their family — stories that went back to her grandparents and their grandparents, down through the generations to a man she called “the African.” Still vividly remembering the stories after he grew up and became a writer, Haley began to search for documentation that might authenticate the narrative. In an astonishing feat of genealogical detective work, he discovered not only the name of “the African” — Kunta Kinte — but the precise location of Juffure, the very village in The Gambia, West Africa, from which he was abducted in 1767. Roots is the drama of Kunta Kinte and the six generations who came after him. COMMENTS — After a 20-year career in the Coast Guard, Haley became a magazine writer and journalist before writing his first book, The Autobiography of Malcolm X. During his research for Roots, Haley met his sixth cousins, still living in Juffure in Africa. |
| My Rating: | 7 |