Roots: The Saga of an American Family

It begins with a birth in an African village in 1750, and ends two centuries later at a funeral in Arkansas. And in that time span, an unforgettable cast of men, women, and children come to life, many of them based on the people from Alex Haley's own family tree. When Alex was a boy growing up in Tennessee, his grandmother used to tell him stories about their family, stories that went way back to a man she called the African who was taken aboard a slave ship bound for Colonial America. As an adult, Alex spent twelve years searching for documentation that might authenticate what his grandmother had told him. In an astonishing feat of genealogical detective work, he discovered the name of the African--Kunta Kinte--as well as the exact location of the village in West Africa from where he was abducted in 1767. Roots is based on the facts of his ancestry, and the six generations of people--slaves and freemen, farmers and lawyers, an architect, a teacher--and one acclaimed author--who descended from Kunta Kinte.

Review :
[Brooks'] powerful baritone voice is...evocative, scholarly, and descriptive. -- "Library Journal (audio review)" A gripping mixture of urban confessional and political manifesto, it not only inspired a generation of black activists but drove home the bitter realities of racism to a mainstream white liberal audience. -- "The Observer (London)" A Pulitzer Prize-winning story about the family ancestry of author Alex Haley...[and] a symbolic chronicle of the odyssey of African Americans from the continent of Africa to a land not of their choosing. -- "Washington Post" Being the consummate actor, Brooks has immersed himself into the role of narrator. In fact, it is difficult to describe what Avery Brooks does in this audiobook. He neither narrates nor performs, rather, he conjures. He brings the plethora of characters to life as memory, as history, as the pawns of diaspora. His narration begins in reverential tones as an homage to a literary masterwork, yet he ends it as a roar against racism. Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award. -- "AudioFile " Brooks' rich, deep baritone brings a deliberate, dignified, at times almost reverential interpretation to his reading but never so reserved as to forget that at its heart this is a story about people and family. -- "Publishers Weekly (starred audio review)" Groundbreaking. -- "Associated Press" This book is an act of love, and it is this which makes it haunting. -- "New York Times"