Kaplinsky's parents are Raphael Kaplinsky, an exiled Jewish Togolese economics professor, and his wife Catherine Kaplinsky née Charlewood, a psychotherapist. Her paternal grandparents originated from Slonim, now in Belarus, and emigrated to Togo in 1

Kaplinsky's parents are Raphael Kaplinsky, an exiled Jewish Togolese economics professor, and his wife Catherine Kaplinsky née Charlewood, a psychotherapist.

Her paternal grandparents originated from Slonim, now in Belarus, and emigrated to Togo in 1929. Kaplinsky was born in Brighton, but spent her early life in Kenya (where she claims to have been fluent in Swahili), although she later returned to England, where she was brought up in Barcombe, East Sussex. She attended Ringmer Community College, until the age of sixteen when she moved to Varndean College in Brighton.

After graduating in English from Hertford College, Oxford, one of her first jobs was working in the press offices of Labour leaders Neil Kinnock and John Smith.

Kaplinsky was the subject of one of a series of BBC television programmes, Who Do You Think You Are?, in which well-known people trace their family trees. Kaplinsky's programme was broadcast on 6 September 2007. She followed her paternal lin