 First edition | |
| Author | Harold Courlander |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Published | 1967 |
| Publisher | Crown Publishers |
| Publication place | United States |
The African is a 1967 novel by Harold Courlander. By 1978 14,000 hard-cover and 130,000 paperback copies of the book were sold. [1]
A twelve-year-old African boy, Hwesuhunu, is kidnapped from his homeland by French slave traders, [2] and endures the terrors of the Middle Passage and being sold into slavery. Hwesuhunu is brought to the island of Saint Lucia, and is later sold to a Georgia plantation for US$100.
He is assigned the new name of Wes Hunu, and spends years as a slave before escaping and living for a time with Native Americans. Hwesuhunu goes to Freedom Island, a refuge located in a swamp, that sheltered escaped slaves. But the refuge is governed by a cruel bully, so Hwesuhunu leaves in search of a better home. [2]
The novel became the subject of controversy when it was revealed that author Alex Haley had plagiarized sections of The African for his 1976 novel Roots [3] which later was made into a 1977 television miniseries, [4] a 1979 sequel miniseries, and a 2016 television miniseries remake. [5]
In 1978, Haley paid Harold Courlander and his publisher $650,000 (~$2.38 million in 2023) as out-of-court settlement of the lawsuit. [4]
Alexander Murray Palmer Haley was an American writer and the author of the 1976 book Roots: The Saga of an American Family. ABC adapted the book as a television miniseries of the same name and aired it in 1977 to a record-breaking audience of 130 million viewers. In the United States, the book and miniseries raised the public awareness of black American history and inspired a broad interest in genealogy and family history.
Paul Edward Winfield was an American actor. He was known for his portrayal of a Louisiana sharecropper who struggles to support his family during the Great Depression in the landmark film Sounder (1972), which earned him an Academy Award nomination. He portrayed Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1978 television miniseries King, for which he was nominated for an Emmy Award. Winfield was also known for his roles in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, The Terminator, L.A. Law, and 24 episodes of the sitcom 227. He received four Emmy nominations overall, winning in 1995 for his 1994 guest role in Picket Fences.
Queen: The Story of an American Family is a 1993 partly factual historical novel by Alex Haley and David Stevens.
Alex Haley's Queen is a 1993 American television miniseries that aired in three installments on February 14, 16, and 18 on CBS. The miniseries is an adaptation of the 1993 novel Queen: The Story of an American Family, by Alex Haley and David Stevens. The novel is based on the life of Queen Jackson Haley, Haley's paternal grandmother. Alex Haley died in February 1992 before completing the novel. It was later finished by David Stevens and published in 1993. Stevens also wrote the screenplay for the miniseries.
Kunta Kinteh Island, formerly called James Island and St Andrew's Island, is an island in the Gambia River, 30 km (19 mi) from the river mouth and near Juffureh in the Republic of the Gambia. Fort James is located on the island. It is less than 3.2 km from Albreda on the river's northern bank. As an important historical site in the West African slave trade, it is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, together with related sites including a ruined Portuguese chapel and a colonial warehouse in Albreda, the Maurel Frères Building in Juffureh, and Fort Bullen and Six-Gun Battery, which are located at the mouth of the Gambia River.
Roots is a 1977 American television miniseries based on Alex Haley's 1976 novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family, set during and after the era of slavery in the United States. The series first aired on ABC in January 1977 over eight consecutive nights.
Kunta Kinte is a fictional character in the 1976 novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family by American author Alex Haley. Kunta Kinte was based on one of Haley's ancestors, a Gambian man who was born around 1750, enslaved, and taken to America where he died around 1822. Haley said that his account of Kunta's life in Roots is a mixture of fact and fiction.
Roots: The Saga of an American Family is a 1976 novel written by Alex Haley. It tells the story of Kunta Kinte, an 18th-century Mandinka, captured as an adolescent, sold into slavery in Africa, and transported to North America. It explores his life and those of his descendants in the United States, down to Haley. The novel was quickly adapted as a hugely popular television miniseries, Roots (1977). Together, the novel and series were a cultural sensation in the United States. The novel spent forty-six weeks on The New York Times Best Seller list, including twenty-two weeks at number one.
The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman is a 1971 novel by Ernest J. Gaines. The story depicts the struggles of Black people as seen through the eyes of the narrator, a woman named Jane Pittman. She tells of the major events of her life from the time she was a young slave girl in the American South at the end of the Civil War.
Harold Courlander was an American novelist, folklorist, and anthropologist and an expert in the study of Haitian life. The author of 35 books and plays and numerous scholarly articles, Courlander specialized in the study of African, Caribbean, Afro-American, and Native American cultures. He took a special interest in oral literature, cults, and Afro-American cultural connections with Africa.
Jufureh is a town in the Gambia, 30 kilometers inland on the north bank of the River Gambia in the North Bank Division near Kunta Kinteh Island. The town is home to a museum and Fort Jillifree.
Roots: The Next Generations is an American television miniseries based on the last seven chapters of Alex Haley's 1976 novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family. First aired on ABC in February 1979, it is a sequel to the 1977 Roots miniseries, tracing the lives of Kunta Kinte's descendants in Henning, Tennessee, from 1882 to 1967.
Roots: The Gift is a 1988 American historical drama television film directed by Kevin Hooks and written by D.M. Eyre Jr. It is the third installment of the Roots miniseries. The film premiered on ABC on December 11, 1988, with AT&T as the sole national sponsor for the broadcast, and was crafted as a Christmas film. LeVar Burton and Louis Gossett Jr. reprise their respective roles of Kunta Kinte and Fiddler. The film takes place between the second and third episodes of the original Roots series. It was watched by 23.3 million viewers.
Tina Andrews is an American actress, television producer, screenwriter, author and playwright. She played Valerie Grant in the series Days of Our Lives from 1975 until 1977.
A root is the part of a plant, generally underground, that anchors the plant body, and absorbs and stores water and nutrients.
Noni Carter is an American author from Fayetteville, Georgia, whose first book, Good Fortune, was released by Simon & Schuster in January 2010. The young-adult novel is about the life of a slave girl who was snatched from her homeland in Africa in the early 19th century and brought to the United States, where she eventually escaped from a plantation and fled to freedom. Carter, who started attending Harvard University as a freshman in the fall of 2009, is one of the youngest writers signed by Simon & Schuster. Noni is currently completing a PhD at Columbia University.
Lord Ligonier was an 18th-century British slave ship built in New England that unloaded enslaved Africans in Annapolis, Maryland in 1767. The ship was made famous by Alex Haley's novel, Roots: The Saga of an American Family, in which it brought his ancestor, Kunta Kinte, from The Gambia to the colonial United States.
The Book of Negroes is a 2015 Canadian historical drama television miniseries directed by Clement Virgo, adapted by Virgo and Lawrence Hill from the latter’s 2007 novel of the same name. It stars Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Lyriq Bent, Cuba Gooding Jr., Louis Gossett Jr., Ben Chaplin, Allan Hawco, Greg Bryk, and Jane Alexander. It originally aired in six installments on CBC in Canada on January 7, 2015, and on BET in the United States on February 16.
Roots is a 2016 American miniseries and a remake of the 1977 miniseries with the same name, based on Alex Haley's 1976 novel, Roots: The Saga of an American Family, which follows an African man who is shipped to North America as a slave and his descendants. It first aired on May 30, 2016, and stars Malachi Kirby, Forest Whitaker, Anna Paquin, Laurence Fishburne, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Anika Noni Rose, T.I. and South African actress Nokuthula Ledwaba. It was produced on a budget of $50 million.
Lisa Drew is a retired editor who held top editorial positions at Doubleday, William Morrow and Company, and Scribner. Drew was an editor for Pulitzer Prize-winning Roots: The Saga of an American Family as well as numerous books by the Bush family. Other notable authors she edited include Helen Thomas, Nathan Miller, John E. Douglas, Bruce Henderson, Christine Brennan, and Geraldine Ferraro. At Scribner, Drew created her own imprint, A Lisa Drew Book.
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