Blanche d’Alpuget, the acclaimed Australian writer and widow of former prime minister Bob Hawke, has died aged 82 after complications from influenza, her family has announced.
Her death was confirmed on Wednesday, 9 September 2026, after she died the previous day. Her family said she had written and lived entirely on her own terms.
“We will miss her force, her humour, her curiosity and her love beyond measure,” the family said.
D’Alpuget also left a final message for her loved ones, which they shared after her death: “Our highest calling and greatest achievement is love, the rule of life. Love one another.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese paid tribute to the author, describing her as “a true one-off” and praising her novels for their “verve and originality”. He said her biographies were “comprehensive and definitive”, particularly those she wrote about Hawke, who became her great love and ultimately her husband.
Blanche d’Alpuget’s life in letters
D’Alpuget first met Hawke in Jakarta in 1970, when he was a senior trade union figure and she was living overseas with her first husband, diplomat Tony Pratt. Their relationship later became an extended affair before Hawke’s divorce from his first wife, Hazel, and the couple’s marriage in 1995.
She remained with Hawke for almost 24 years until his death in 2019, caring for him at home during the final stages of his illness. Their relationship was initially a source of tension within the Hawke family, but relations between d’Alpuget and his children later improved.
Her 1982 book, Robert J. Hawke: A Biography, was widely regarded as a landmark work of Australian political writing. She later expanded it to cover Hawke’s years as prime minister and published Bob Hawke: The Complete Biography after his death.
Her work extended well beyond politics. She wrote novels, essays and biographies, and received several literary awards, including the New South Wales Premier’s Award for her political biography of Hawke. In later years, she turned to historical fiction, writing a series about Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine.
D’Alpuget grew up as an only child in Sydney’s eastern suburbs and worked briefly in journalism before travelling and living in England, France, Indonesia and Malaysia. She returned to Australia in her thirties and built a career exploring power, politics and human relationships.
She is survived by her son, artist and sculptor Louis Pratt, her daughter-in-law Brianna, her granddaughter Sienna, three Hawke step-children and several step-grandchildren.
Writer Troy Bramston, who interviewed d’Alpuget extensively while researching his own biography of Hawke, remembered her as “larger than life, fun and vivacious, and a very talented writer”.
