Alex Haley Writer Born: 11 August 1921 Died: 10 February 1992 (heart attack) Birthplace: Ithaca, New York Best known as: The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the book Roots Alex Haley wrote Roots, one of the most celebrated novels of the 1970s. Haley spent 20 years in the Coast Guard (1939-59) then began a second career as a writer, working for magazines ranging from Readers Digest to Playboy. Haley was a ghostwriter on his first major book: The Autobiography of Malcolm X was published in 1965 and became a hit. Haley spent years tracing his own family history and decided it went back to a single African man, Kunta Kinte, who was captured in Gambia and taken to America as a slave around 1767. That research led to Haleys epic book Roots, published in 1976 to wide acclaim. The next year the television miniseries Roots ran for a week on network TV and became a national phenomenon. Roots won a Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Although questions were raised about the accuracy of the history Haley described in Roots, he is still credited with inspiring interest in genealogy among African-Americans.
Posted on: Mon, 24 Feb 2014 15:28:26 +0000
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