November 11: Howard Fast

Historical novelist Howard Fast was born in New York on this date in 1914. His most compelling novels included Citizen Tom Paine (1943), Freedom Road (1944, about slavery and Reconstruction), My Glorious Brothers (1948, about the Maccabean struggle), and Spartacus (1951), which he began to write while in jail for refusing to give testimony to the House UnAmerican Activities Committee. Although Fast was a best-selling author by then, he had to self-publish Spartacus, only to see it made into a smash hit film a decade later. An active Communist, Fast was a recipient of the Stalin Peace Prize in 1953. He also wrote numerous novels under the pen-name E.V. Cunningham and other books under the names Behn Boruch, Walter Ericson, and Simon Kent. Thousands of young Americans awoke to the drama of freedom struggle in their own country through the creative writing of Howard Fast.

“In the Party I found ambition, narrowness, and hatred; I also found love and dedication and high courage and integrity — and some of the noblest human beings I have ever known.” —Howard Fast