Roots Book

Winner of the 1977 Pulitzer Prize Special Award Early in the spring of 1750, in the village of Juffure, four days upriver from the coast of The Gambia, West Africa, a manchild was born to Omoro and Binta Kinte. From an African child in The Gambia, sold into slavery, through six generations - slaves and freedmen, farmers and blacksmiths, lawyers and architects - back to Africa, this is history told through one man’s family story. Tracing his ancestry, Alex Haley followed a trail that begins with a sixteen-year-old youth, Kunta Kinte. It was this young man, who had been torn from his homeland and in torment and anguish brought to the slave markets of the New World, who held the key to Haley's deep and distant past. Originally published in 1976, Roots became a household name after the hugely popular and influential television adaptation aired in 1977. Aired consecutively, the series, approximately 130 million Americans tuned in to the eight broadcasts and the series had an equally powerful impact in the UK. Considered to be a landmark publication, Roots impact on a generation, raising awareness of African American history, was unprecedented. Now a 2016 remake of the series, airing in the UK on the BBC, is introducing Haley’s book to a new generation. ‘Roots is a study of continuities, of consequences, of how a people perpetuate themselves, how each generation helps to doom, or helps to liberate, the coming one.’ – The New York Times ‘Haley brought the dark truth of America’s 18th-century rise into the light far more powerfully than any textbook.’ – The Telegraph