Hester Kaplan: "Twice Born: Finding My Father In the Margins of Biography"

Biographers in Conversation · Apr 29, 2026 · 44m

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Hester Kaplan chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about Twice Born: Finding My Father In the Margins of Biography.

Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:

The catalyst for crafting Twice Born was the death of Hester’s father, the biographer Justin Kaplan. Hester realised she had lost the chance to ask her father the questions that had always eluded her during his lifetime.

Rather than being a conventional biography, Twice Born blends biography, memoir, and fiction, a structure Kaplan chose deliberately to view her father from many…