Der Perlentaucher unter den Buchläden Eichendorff21

**Alex Haley** was born in Ithaca, New York in 1921. After his retirement from the Coast Guard in 1959, Haley began his writing career and eventually became a senior editor for _Reader's Digest_. Haley conducted the first Playboy Interview for _Playboy_ magazine. The interview, with jazz legend Miles Davis, appeared in the September 1962 issue. One of Haley's most famous interviews was a 1963 interview with Malcolm X for _Playboy_ , which led to collaboration on the activist's autobiography. Haley later ghostwrote _The Autobiography of Malcolm X_ , based on interviews conducted shortly before Malcolm's death. The book was published in 1965 and was a huge success, later named by _Time_ magazine one of the ten most important nonfiction books of the twentieth century. In 1976 Haley published _Roots: The Saga of an American Family_ , a novel based loosely on his family's history. Haley traced in it his ancestry back to Africa and covered seven American generations, starting from his ancestor, Kunta Kinte. _Roots_ was eventually published in thirty-seven languages, won the Pulitzer Prize, and went on to become a popular television miniseries in 1977, as well as causing a renewed interest in genealogy.