Roots is a groundbreaking story of history and family that spanned continents and touched generations. One of the most important books and television series ever to appear, Roots galvanized the nation and created an extraordinary political, racial, social and cultural dialogue that hadn’t been seen since the publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
Roots is a novel written by Alex Haley and published in 1976. It portrays the story of Kunta Kinte, an 18th-century African, captured as an adolescent and sold into slavery in the United States, and follows his life and the lives of his alleged descendants in the U.S. down to Haley. The release of the novel, combined with its hugely popular television adaptation, Roots (1977), led to a cultural sensation in the United States. The novel spent 46 weeks on The New York Times Best Seller List, including 22 weeks in that list’s top spot.
The book sold …
Roots is a groundbreaking story of history and family that spanned continents and touched generations. One of the most important books and television series ever to appear, Roots galvanized the nation and created an extraordinary political, racial, social and cultural dialogue that hadn’t been seen since the publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
Roots is a novel written by Alex Haley and published in 1976. It portrays the story of Kunta Kinte, an 18th-century African, captured as an adolescent and sold into slavery in the United States, and follows his life and the lives of his alleged descendants in the U.S. down to Haley. The release of the novel, combined with its hugely popular television adaptation, Roots (1977), led to a cultural sensation in the United States. The novel spent 46 weeks on The New York Times Best Seller List, including 22 weeks in that list’s top spot.
The book sold over one million copies in the first year, and the miniseries was watched by an astonishing 130 million people. It also won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. The last seven chapters of the novel were later adapted in the form of a second mini-series, Roots: The Next Generations, in 1979.
A remarkable book, spanning generations and continents. The first part of the story, covering the journey and experiences of Kunta Kinte - harrowing and impossible to miss. For anybody whose ancestry is a product of the transatlantic slave trade, this brings forth the reason so many of us try to find where we came from: there is history missing from our lives. I listened to the audiobook version of this - narrated by Avery Brooks; his voice (and his incredible acting prowess) lend dimensions to the story that would have been missed otherwise.
I did not live in the US when the book was published or the movie released, so I'd missed this book till now, though I'd heard of it. It's epic, heartbreaking, inspiring, depressing, moving, and very hard to describe adequately. Picked it up on Audible and the narrator is excellent also. If you've been living under a rock, or like me outside the country, the author's family's oral history contained enough information that he was actually able to trace back to the village and tribe that his ancestor came from and recount the generations between that man and the author. He fictionalizes his ancestor's abduction by slavers and what befell the subsequent generations, based on details from true family tales and historical records, until he can tell his own story and how he pieced together the history and visited his ancestor's village. It's a damning, moving, and amazing story of …
I did not live in the US when the book was published or the movie released, so I'd missed this book till now, though I'd heard of it. It's epic, heartbreaking, inspiring, depressing, moving, and very hard to describe adequately. Picked it up on Audible and the narrator is excellent also. If you've been living under a rock, or like me outside the country, the author's family's oral history contained enough information that he was actually able to trace back to the village and tribe that his ancestor came from and recount the generations between that man and the author. He fictionalizes his ancestor's abduction by slavers and what befell the subsequent generations, based on details from true family tales and historical records, until he can tell his own story and how he pieced together the history and visited his ancestor's village. It's a damning, moving, and amazing story of suffering, human cruelty, and endurance as this one family story personifies the history of slavery in the US. Definitely worth reading.
