http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,305776,00.html

Is Alex Haley's Roots part of the fabric of American history — or a fabrication? New charges of fraud are being leveled at the late author just as the newest chapter in his family saga, CBS' Queen, has become the season's top-rated miniseries. In a recent Village Voice exposé, author Philip Nobile labels Roots a hoax — prompting Alex's brother George to complain of ''a literary lynching'' and the author's former editor, Walter Anderson, to add, ''The dead can't sue for libel.''

In Roots, Haley — who died on Feb. 10, 1992 — recounts how he pieced together his family's arrival in America through a few African words passed from generation to generation. Historians have long charged that Haley distorted documents. ''There is no evidence that Kunta Kinte existed,'' says genealogist Elizabeth Shown Mills. ''For everything prior to the Civil War, he wrote a story — a darn good story.''