Synopsis
An historical narrative of slavery in the American South. Based upon actual researches conducted over a period of years, Haley reconstructs the events that led to the enslavement of Kunte Kinte, the "African" identified in Haley's family lore as their founding father, and his settlement on American shores. Kinte, in his own history, becomes an allegory of the history of the millions of Africans brought forcibly to America, and of the people they became in the intervening years.
| Details | | Publication Date: | 1976-09-01 | | Edition Description: | Reissue |
| Size | | Length: | 688 pages | | Height: | 8.5 in | | Width: | 6.0 in | | Thickness: | 2.2 in | | Weight: | 32.0 oz |
Publisher's Note
The monumental bestseller! Alex Haley recaptures his family's history in this drama of eighteenth-century slave Kunta Kinte and his descendants.
This "bold . . . extraordinary . . . blockbuster . . ". (Newsweek) begins with a birth in 1750, in an African village; it ends seven generations later at the Arkansas funeral of a black professor whose children are a teacher, a Navy architect, an assistant director of the U.S. Information Agency, and an author. The author is Alex Haley.
Industry Reviews
"'As I look at it now,' says Alex Haley, 'it seems there was a meant-to-be quality about 'Roots'. I first heard the story told by my grandmother as a child, that was the real beginning....Whenever we children came around, she would repeat the story of the man she called 'the African,' how he was captured and what happened to him in America. After a while we started acting out the incidents, play-acting, recreating everything she told us, and it became an indelible memory for me....Although it's advertised as nonfiction, perhaps we should call it 'faction.' Every statement in 'Roots' is accurate in terms of authenticity....The beginning is a re-creation, using novelistic techniques, but as it moves forward more is known and it is more factually based.'"
New York Times Book Review - Alex Haley (09/26/1976)
"Like 'Roots,' Kunte Kinte will become one of the great creations of American literature, a character endowed, through Haley's moving prose, with the thoughts, actions and strength of many millions of American slaves. It is no understatement to call him an Everyman but one unlike any allegorical figure in our written culture....Haley has uncovered beneath the chronicles of white America the raging heart and tenacious history of a people in captivity."
Nation - Jason Berry (10/02/1976)
"The passion of Haley's narrative, the sweep of its concept and its wealth of largely neglected material elevate 'Roots' to an event of social importance...a book that is bold in concept and ardent in execution, one that will reach millions of people and alter the way we see ourselves."
Newsweek - P. D. Zimmerman (09/27/1976)
"The saga of Kunte Kinte, from a small boy in his African village to the midyears of his life, is absolutely first-rate and fascinating. Thereafter the story, with a few notable exceptions, seems overly familiar and without suspense....'Roots,' unhappily, is not the masterwork one had hoped for, yet the flaws pale when compared with the enormity of Haley's task."
Saturday Review - L. L. King (09/18/1976)
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