Harold Courlander

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Harold Courlander (September 18, 1908 - March 15, 1996) was an American anthropologist and novelist born in Indianapolis.

Brought up in a highly diverse neighborhood, he was interested in other cultures throughout his life. He spent his adult life traveling the world, collecting and studying folklore as part of his anthropological fieldwork. Haiti was his specialty, but he published collections from Indonesia, Africa, the Middle East, (Native) America, and other places as well. He had a very long and distinguished career as a folklorist, ethnographer and music scholar. In the latter connection, Courlander was for many years the general editor of "Ethnic Folkways Library," a series of world music recordings issued on the Folkways label. This series comprised the first commercially issued ethnic music recordings, and preceded Alan Lomax's "World Library of Folk and Primitive Music" by several years. Unfortunately, most of these seminal albums have not been reissued on CD format as of this writing. Courlander wrote novels as well, and actually might be best known for the scandal surrounding his novel, The African.

In 1978 Courlander successfully sued Alex Haley, claiming that portions of Roots were lifted from The African. Haley reportedly admitted that he "unintentionally" did indeed crib Courlander's work, and paid him $650,000. Many of Courlander's folktale collections have been printed as children's books such as the Cow-Tail Switch and Other West African Stories which was a Newbery Honor book in 1948.