Alex Haley was an American author and screenwriter who is best known for his novel 'ROOTS: The Saga of an American Family' which was published in 1976. The novel tells the story of Kunta Kinte, an 18th-century African man who was captured and sold into slavery in the United States. It was adapted into a television miniseries in 1977 and won nine Emmy Awards. Haley also wrote the screenplay for the 1977 miniseries 'ROOTS: The Next Generations'. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1977 for his work on 'ROOTS'.