Alex Haley taught himself to write during a 20 year career in the US coast guard service. After retiring in 1959 as its first Chief Journalist, he became a magazine writer and interviewer before undertaking his first book The Autobiography of Malcolm X. He spent the next 12 years researching and writing Roots...

The story tells us the monumental saga of one man's twelve year search for his family's origins.

The man Alex Haley is the black American who goes in search of his roots. Through six generations of Slavery and then freedom - A family consisting of farmers,blacksmiths,lawyers and architects.

He tries to trace his ancestry back to Gambia in West Africa, from where his ancestor Kunta Kinte , a sixteen year old youth torn from his homeland and brought to the slave market of the new world..By tracing back his own roots, Haley tells the story of 39 million Americans of African descent.

It's hard to say if this book is fiction, history or biography, since it reads like all three in those 878 pages .It is rich in every human emotion possible and rich in hope.

In my opinion this is one book that should be deemed as a classic , because it portrays an entire history of slavery in America.

Roots is a very emotional book. Alex Haley begins with the birth of Kunta Kintay the African , his ancestor who was captured and brought to the US and through whom Alex Haley was born some generations later...one of the most touching, most descriptive books I have ever read.

I would strongly recommend everyone to read this book , because it is one book that makes you understand the pain, suffering and anguish suffered by another man , just because his skin was black..
It makes us realise that all men deserve dignity and respect.