Howard Fast

Howard Fast was the son of Jewish immigrants — his mother Ida from Britain, his father Barney from Ukraine, who had shortened the family name from Fastovsky. He was jailed in 1950 for refusing to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee, and wrote Spartacus in prison and after it, publishing it himself when no house would touch him; the Kubrick film of 1960 broke the Hollywood blacklist. His My Glorious Brothers retold the Maccabean revolt for a modern readership.