Review 1:
"'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.'"
09/26/1976
Review 2:
"Like 'Roots,' Kunte Kinte will become one of the great creations of American literature, a character endowed, through Haley's moving prose, with the thoughts, actions and strength of many millions of American slaves. It is no understatement to call him an Everyman but one unlike any allegorical figure in our written culture....Haley has uncovered beneath the chronicles of white America the raging heart and tenacious history of a people in captivity."
10/02/1976
Review 3:
"The saga of Kunte Kinte, from a small boy in his African village to the midyears of his life, is absolutely first-rate and fascinating. Thereafter the story, with a few notable exceptions, seems overly familiar and without suspense....'Roots,' unhappily, is not the masterwork one had hoped for, yet the flaws pale when compared with the enormity of Haley's task."
09/18/1976
Review 4:
"The passion of Haley's narrative, the sweep of its concept and its wealth of largely neglected material elevate 'Roots' to an event of social importance...a book that is bold in concept and ardent in execution, one that will reach millions of people and alter the way we see ourselves."
09/27/1976
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