Roots: The Saga of an American Family

"'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.'Haley, Alex is the author of 'Roots: The Saga of an American Family', published 1980 under ISBN 9780440174646 and ISBN 0440174643.