Roots: The Saga of an American Family

Roots ( in the original American Roots: The Saga of an American Family ) is a novel by American author Alex Haley 's 1976 The book was filmed shortly after its appearance for television.. The series was also in the German version the title Roots, which is why the novel in the German language is also known under its original title. In 1979, under the title Roots - The Next Generations filmed the last seven chapters of the novel.

Action

1750 brings Binta Kinte, wife of Omoro Kinte from the Mandinka people, their first son, who is named after his grandfather, Kunta Kinte. The boy grows up sheltered, but strictly brought up in the village Juffure in the modern state of Gambia; he must cope with the difficulties of growing up, seen the birth of three younger brothers, and finally consecrated after hard years of apprenticeship to the man. Henceforth, he goes on a journey and is preparing to establish themselves a family.

But this does not occur; Slavers abduct the 17 -year-old Kunta 1767 from near his home in order to sell it later at a slave market in America to a plantation in Virginia as " nigger ". After his second unsuccessful attempt to escape him, a part of his foot chopped off to the future to prevent it from tearing. Kinte eventually resulting in his lot and becomes the coachman of its owner. From the marriage with the cook Bell 's daughter Kizzy is clear. When she tries to help teenage her lover to escape to the North and sold it to South Carolina, her father remains as a broken man.

Kizzy is sold to a nouveau riche named Tom Moore, who breeds fighting cocks. He abused and impregnates the young blacks, to which she brings her son George was born.

Thus, in several episodes of the story of Kunta Kinte and seven generations of his descendants is told, who have to survive in the era of slavery in the United States.

Background

Alex Haley, who was fascinated according to their own statements from childhood days of the stories that had been told his grandmother about their ancestors began in the 1960s to explore the history of his family and was interested in it especially for those first ancestors, the had been abducted by slave traders to America and was referred to in the family as " the Africans".

Haley began to dig into archives, and traveled to Africa, to the village Juffure. Based on this research, he believed he had reconstructed the biography of an ancestor Kunta Kinte and called some of his descendants conclusive.

The historian pair Haley Mills threw right to have ignored existing records if they had objected to the fictional family history. Haley again defended himself with the fact that access to the file from the times of slavery could not be trusted and basically oral traditions should be preferred to the history of black families.

Accusations of plagiarism

Haley's reputation suffered by accusations of plagiarism. In an out of court settlement Haley paid $ 650,000 and had admitted that he had taken over parts of Roots from The African by Harold Courlander, however, claimed that this was done unintentionally. 1988 accused him of Margaret Walker Alexander, to have violated the copyrights on her novel Jubilee. The case was dismissed by the court because it did not recognize justiciable similarities between the works.

Reception and adaptation

Roots is widely regarded as one of the most important literary works on slavery in the United States and the identity of the African-American population. The book has been translated into 37 languages.

Alex Haley received the 1977 Pulitzer Prize for Roots.

Expenditure

• Alex Haley: Roots ( Roots ) Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1997, ISBN 3-596-22448-9