Alex Haley nearly lost it all writing 'Roots'

NPR's Book of the Day

NPR

Arts, Books

4.2 • 671 Ratings

🗓️ 9 February 2022

⏱️ 8 minutes

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Summary

To recognize Black History Month, Book of the Day is digging into the archives to bring you some important interviews. In 1977, author Alex Haley told NPR he didn't want to put the main character of Roots, Kunta Kinte, on a slave ship. To prepare for writing that portion of the novel, Haley flew to Africa and caught a voyage home on a cargo ship — sneaking down into the hold after dinner. In the mornings, he would write notes about what he thought Kunta's experience would have been like. He told NPR's Marty Griffen that the experience weighed him down so much it nearly cost him his life.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaung. We're digging back into the archives this week
0:07.7	to recognize Black History Month. And today, we've got this interview from 1977 with Alex Haley,
0:14.5	the author of Roots. It took a lot for him to write the book, more than I ever knew, really,
0:19.5	because he wanted to understand firsthand what it would be like to make the book, more than I ever knew, really, because he wanted to understand
0:21.3	firsthand what it would be like to make the trip his characters would make from a West African
0:26.5	port to the United States in the hold of a ship. So he got as close as he could, sleeping in the
0:32.8	depths of a modern-day ship, which he says wasn't really that close. And he told NPR's Marty Griffin that even so, the trip nearly killed him.
0:42.3	Just a heads up, the conversation centers on suicidal ideation.
0:46.3	Here it is, and Alex Haley starts his off.
0:49.0	In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life.
0:53.7	Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors.
0:58.3	On our new show, Sources and Methods.
1:00.3	NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people
1:03.6	helping you understand why distant events matter here at home.
1:07.9	Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app
1:10.1	or wherever you get your podcasts.
1:13.5	I went to Africa, flew to Africa, and put the word up and down the coast that I was wanting to book passage as a passenger on the first freighter I could get sailing any from any West African port
1:29.3	directed to the United States and finally I got word that a ship was sailing from
1:35.3	Monrovia, Liberia to Florida and I got there and shipped on as a passenger.
1:45.0	She was carrying largely a cargo of crude rubber in the small bales they do it in.
1:54.0	And I got on the ship and I talked to the captain and he could not, of course, formally approve what I wanted to do,
2:00.0	but he could sort of agree not to know,
	...

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