Support WBUR

'Twice Born' tells a tale of discovery through biography

09:33

Here & Now Newsroom

November 19, 2025

The cover of "Twice Born" and author Hester Kaplan. (Courtesy of Catapult and Rupert Whiteley)

Hester Kaplan felt as though she never knew her father, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning biographer Justin Kaplan. But as she writes in her new memoir "Twice Born: Finding My Father in the Margins of Biography," she began to discover who he was after his death, through reading his acclaimed biography of Mark Twain.

Kaplan joins host Tiziana Dearing to talk about the book.

Book excerpt: 'Twice Born'

By Hester Kaplan

This segment aired on November 19, 2025.

Here & Now: Editors' Picks Book Excerpt