Hester Carvalho (1964) grew up in Amsterdam and studied Japanology in Leiden. During her studies, she worked on Saturday at the record store Get Records, where she was paid in LPs.
In 1990 Carvalho started writing about pop music for NRC Handelsblad. She graduated in the summer of '90 and became editor of the VPRO youth program Onrust. After Onrust and the "thirty-something magazine" Lollapalooza ended, she decided to devote herself entirely to writing. She expanded her field to nightlife, book reviews and fashion, and subcultures such as transvestism and SM.
After some experiences in the Paris fashion circuit, she again focused entirely on music. In 2004 she received the Pop Press Award for her articles in NRC Handelsblad. Following the series "Hesters Popcorner" on the children's page of the NRC, in which she explained the text of hit singles to children, she wrote the children's book "Pop Music Nutshell - What everyone should know about pop" (2004, Van Goor publishing house). In 2006 she received the Jip Golsteijn Journalistiekprijs for an article about Tom Waits. From the jury report: "Just like Jip Golsteijn, she looks for her prey at the last stop before the gutter" and "Hester's way of reviewing forces you to read, sometimes even grabs you".
