Kunta Kinte is the central character of the novel, Roots: The Saga of an American Family by American author Alex Haley, and of the television miniseries Roots,based on the book. Haley described his book as faction - a mixture of fact and fiction.After Haley's book became nationally famous, American author Harold Courlander noted that the section describing Kinte's life was apparently taken from Courlander's book The African. Haley at first dismissed the charge, but later issued a public statement affirming that Courlander's book had been the source, and Haley attributed the error to a mistake of one of his assistant researchers.