IN BRIEF
- The 82-year-old died after complications from influenza.
- An acclaimed writer, d'Alpuget published her final novel in 2025, at 81.
Blanche d'Alpuget, the Australian writer and widow of former prime minister Bob Hawke, has died.
D'Alpuget died on Tuesday from complications from influenza. She was 82.
In a statement, d'Alpuget's family remembered her as someone who lived "entirely on her own terms".
"She was full of vitality, generosity and curiosity, with an extraordinary appetite for beauty, ideas, history, new places and spirited conversation. She refused to be confined by convention or by other people's expectations of who she should be," they said.
"We will miss her force, her humour, her curiosity and her love beyond measure."
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They shared the words d'Alpuget lived by: “Our highest calling and greatest achievement is love, the rule of life. Love one another."
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has shared his condolences, saying Australia has lost "a true one-off".
"As a writer, she was at home in fiction as she was in non-fiction, working in each realm with a keen eye for every telling detail that opened up the humanity of her subject to her readers," he said.
"Blanche’s novels were compelling works of verve and originality, and her biographies comprehensive and definitive – most famously those she wrote of Bob Hawke, who became her great love and ultimately her husband."
An only child, d'Alpuget was raised in Sydney's eastern suburbs.
In her 20s, she pursued a career in journalism and travelled the world with her first husband, Tony Pratt.
She travelled and lived in Indonesia, Malaysia and Europe before returning to Australia in her 30s.
She met Hawke in Jakarta in 1970, but reconnected later in life — taking a job writing his biography, work that would later cement her as an award-winning writer.
The pair were married in 1995, and shared over two decades together before Hawke's death in 2019.
D'Alpuget's lust for life never left her.
"At 80, she returned to Indonesian waters to swim with whale sharks in Raja Ampat," her family said.
She published her final novel, The Bunny Club, last year — at 81.
This is a developing story and this article will be updated.
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