Haley, Alex(ander Murray Palmer) (1921–1992)

US journalist and writer. He first gained some national attention as the collaborator-editor of The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965). His highly acclaimed work, Roots: The Saga of an American Family (1976), which won a Pulitzer Prize, blended fact with fiction and was loosley based on his African-American roots; he had spent 12 years researching his ancestry and claimed to trace it to Kunte Kinte, a slave who was brought to the USA from Gambia in 1767. The book was the basis of a phenomenally successful television miniseries (1977), for which he received a special Pulitzer Prize and the Spingarn Medal. A sequel, Queen (1993), also appeared as a book and television miniseries.

Haley was born in Ithaca, New York. He grew up in Henning, Tennessee, studied at Elizabeth City Teachers College in North Carolina (1937–39). He became a journalist while serving in the US Coast Guard (1939–59). When he quit the service, he established himself in Los Angeles as a freelance writer, conducting several Playboy interviews.