Literature Companion: Roots

By History World

“Roots” by Alex Haley is subtitled “The Saga of an American Family.” The novel was first published in 1976.

The story revolves around Kunta Kinte, who happens to be an eighteenth century African. He is captured as an adolescent and then sold as a slave in the United States.

The novel covers Kunta Kinte’s life and the lives of his descendants in the United States down to Alex Haley, the author of the novel “Roots.”

The novel was adapted for television. Both the novel and its television adaptation caused a kind of cultural sensation in the United States.

Literature Companion: Roots
Copyright
Chapter One: Introduction
Chapter Two: Plot Overview
Chapter Three: Characters
Chapter Four: Complete Summary
Chapter Five: Critical Analysis

• Language: English
• Publisher: Raja Sharma
• Release date: Feb 22, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310106293

Book preview

Literature Companion: Roots

Copyright

Literature Companion: Roots

History World

Copyright@2015 History World

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Chapter One: Introduction

Roots by Alex Haley is subtitled The Saga of an American Family. The novel was first published in 1976.

The story revolves around Kunta Kinte, who happens to be an eighteenth century African. He is captured as an adolescent and then sold as a slave in the United States.

The novel covers Kunta Kinte’s life and the lives of his descendants in the United States down to Alex Haley, the author of the novel Roots.

The novel was adapted for television. Both the novel and its television adaptation caused a kind of cultural sensation in the United States.

Roots is believed to be one of the most significant 20th Century work by an American writer. When the book was published for the first time, it remained on top of the New York Times Best Seller List for several weeks.

Roots was an instant success. Two authors accused Haley of plagiarizing their novels. Harold Courlander, a novelist, said that Roots had been plagiarized from his novel The African which had been published in 1967. He sued Haley in the court of law.

Eventually, both parties agreed to an out of court settlement. Haley later mentioned that some passages in his novel had been copied from Harold’s book, but he said that it was unintentional.

Most of the reviews were highly positive. Within seven months of the book’s release, more than one and a half million copies had sold.

It was particularly popular among African-Americans and it kind of sparked an explosion of interest in the fields of genealogy and researching family histories. The book was highly acclaimed by the scholars and study circles.

Roots brought Haley a Pulitzer Prize in 1977. Its television version also won several awards, including nine Emmy Awards and one Peabody Award.

Chapter Two: Plot Overview

The story revolves around the central character Kunta Kinte. He had been brought as a young man from The Gambia when he was only seventeen years old. Having been brought to the United States, he was sold as a slave.

The story tells about the lives of Kunta Kinte and seven generations of his descendants in the United States.

Kunta happens to have a very difficult childhood in his village, Juffure; however, his childhood was free. The main occupation of the villagers is agriculture. However, they sometimes do not have enough food because of the harsh