Australian author and biographer Blanche d’Alpuget, who was married to former prime minister Bob Hawke for 24 years, has died aged 82.
Her family announced her death on Wednesday, saying they would miss her “force, her humour, her curiosity and her love beyond measure”. No cause of death was disclosed.
D’Alpuget was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2020, less than a year after Hawke died on 16 May 2019, on the eve of Australia’s federal election.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese paid tribute to the writer, describing her as “a true one-off” and praising her work across fiction and non-fiction.
“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.
Albanese said her biographies were “comprehensive and definitive”, particularly those she wrote about Hawke, who became her “great love and ultimately her husband”.
The couple first met in the 1970s, beginning a relationship that eventually led to their marriage in 1995. Their romance was an open secret for years and caused tension within Hawke’s family, particularly after his divorce from his first wife, Hazel, in 1994.
D’Alpuget had been commissioned to write Hawke’s biography in the early 1980s. The resulting book won the New South Wales Premier’s Award for Non-Fiction and established her as one of Australia’s leading political writers.
She was also an acclaimed novelist. Her 1981 book Turtle Beach won The Age’s Novel of the Year award and was later adapted into a film starring Jack Thompson.
D’Alpuget was previously married to diplomat Antony Pratt, with whom she had a son, from 1965 until their divorce in 1986. She was later portrayed by Asher Keddie in the 2010 television film Hawke, which starred Richard Roxburgh as the former prime minister.
In his tribute, Albanese said it was fitting that D’Alpuget’s final message was: “Our highest calling and greatest achievement is love, the rule of life. Love one another.”
