Published in full as Roots: The Saga of an American Family, Haley's book traces his claimed ancestry from Kunta Kinte, a Mandinka youth captured in the Gambia in 1767 and transported on the Lord Ligonier to Annapolis, through seven generations in America: Kizzy, sold away for helping a man escape; her son George, "Chicken George"; blacksmith Tom Murray; and on to Haley himself in Henning, Tennessee. Haley called the work "faction," blending documented research in archives on three continents, family oral history, and a Gambian griot's account with imagined dialogue and scenes. Issued in the Bicentennial year, it spent 46 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list, earned Haley a special Pulitzer Prize, and, through the 1977 television miniseries, sparked a national surge of interest in Black history and genealogy.
Author: Alex Haley ยท Original publisher: Doubleday (Garden City, New York), 1976
