Alex Hailey of “Roots” was a fraud too.
NT Times article I came across: “Alex Haley acknowledges and regrets that vatious materials from ‘The African’ by Harold Courlander found their way into his book ‘Roots.”
“Mr. Haley had conceded that parts of “Roots” were fictionalized, but he denied that he had knowingly made any factual errors. He defended his book about his ancestors as “a symbolic history of a people.”
Haily had to pay a whopping number in damages for his plagiarism. Here in Annapolis, Maryland, his relatives coaxed the city into erecting a statue to him on the waterfront and several plaques outlining the story. Annoys the crap out of me every time I see it.