Friend of Haley Buys ‘Roots’ Pulitzer

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — The Pulitzer Prize that Alex Haley won for “Roots” sold for $50,000 on Saturday at an estate auction held to pay off the late author’s debts.

A friend of the writer bought the prize to donate to Haley’s boyhood home museum in Henning, Tenn., where Haley is buried, estate attorney Paul Coleman said. George Jewett of San Francisco made the winning bid by telephone.

“I think that’s what we wanted to happen and it did happen,” said George Haley, the author’s brother. The sale was part of the three-day auction to satisfy about $1.5 million in debts Haley left at his death in February of a heart attack.

Haley received his Pulitzer in 1977 for fiction for “Roots: The Saga of an American Family,” an international best seller that later became a television miniseries seen by 130 million viewers.