Blanche d’Alpuget author widow of ex-Australian PM Bob Hawke, dies at 82

Blanche d’Alpuget, the acclaimed Australian writer and widow of former Prime Minister Bob Hawke, has died at the age of 82, her family has said.

ABC News reported on Wednesday that d’Alpuget died following complications from influenza.

The author, who was known for biographies, novels and essays, had asked her loved ones to share a final message she left behind.

“Our highest calling and greatest achievement is love, the rule of life. Love one another.”

Her family said she would be remembered as someone who lived fearlessly and took delight in living.

“We will miss her force, her humour, her curiosity and her love beyond measure,” the statement said.

D’Alpuget is survived by her son, Louis Pratt, from her first marriage, granddaughter Sienna, three Hawke step-children and a number of step-grandchildren.

Born and raised as an only child in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, d’Alpuget ventured into journalism before travelling extensively and living in England, France, Indonesia and Malaysia.

She returned to Australia at 30 and began her career as a novelist, with her work exploring themes of power and politics.

Her 1977 biography of Sir Richard Kirby, an Australian arbitrator, academic and diplomat, was critically acclaimed.

D’Alpuget later turned to historical fiction, writing about Henry II and his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine in a five-part series examining their rise to power and dysfunctional family dynamics.

Across her career, she won several awards, including the PEN Golden Jubilee Award, The Age Book of the Year and the Australasian Prize for Commonwealth Literature.

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Her relationship with Bob Hawke

D’Alpuget is best known for her biography of Hawke, who later became her husband.

The couple first met in Jakarta in 1970 and reconnected when Hawke, then prime minister, enlisted d’Alpuget to write his biography.

Hawke later acknowledged that their romance began years before his divorce from his first wife, Hazel Hawke, in 1995. He and d’Alpuget married later that year.

Their relationship attracted criticism from the public and Hawke’s children. In the years before his death in 2019, however, Hawke said he was grateful that tensions between his family and d’Alpuget had begun to ease.

In her later years, d’Alpuget continued to make public appearances, including an interview with ABC’s Nightlife in November 2025, where she discussed the turbulent journey of her public image and her love life following Hawke’s death.

Albanese leads tributes

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese led tributes to the writer, describing her as a distinctive Australian figure.

“Australia has lost a true one-off,” he said in a statement.

“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.”

Albanese described d’Alpuget’s final message as “fitting” and said his thoughts were with her loved ones.

Troy Bramston, who has written biographies of Australia’s former prime ministers, said he interviewed d’Alpuget extensively while working on his biography of Hawke.

“Blanche was larger than life, fun and vivacious, and a very talented writer,” he said.