Blanche d’Alpuget, biographer and widow to former prime minister Bob Hawke, dies aged 82
Posted Wed 9 Sep 2026 at 11:00amWed 9 Sep 2026 at 11:00amWed 9 Sep 2026 at 11:00am
Blanche d’Alpuget, the Australian writer and widow of former prime minister Bob Hawke, has died at the age of 82, her family says.
She was an acclaimed author of biographies, novels and essays, with her political biography of Hawke winning her the New South Wales Premier’s Award.
D’Alpuget is survived by her son, Louis Pratt, from her first marriage, three Hawke step-children and a number of step-grandchildren.
She asked her family to share her final message.
“Our highest calling and greatest achievement is love, the rule of life. Love one another.“
D’Alpuget grew up as an only child in Sydney’s eastern suburbs and dipped into the world of journalism before she set off travelling the world, living in England, France, Indonesia and Malaysia.
She returned to Australia at the age of 30 and began her career as a novelist, her work exploring themes of power and politics.
Her biography of Sir Richard Kirby, an Australian arbitrator, academic, and diplomat, was published to critical acclaim in 1977.
In recent publishings d’Alpuget dove into the world of historical fiction, writing about Henry II and his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine.
The five-part series focused on their rise to power and dysfunctional family dynamics.
Across her career, d’Alpuget won a number of awards including the PEN Golden Jubilee Award, The Age Book of the Year and the Australasian Prize for Commonwealth Literature.
Hawke and d’Alpuget’s love story
The couple first met in Jakarta in 1970 and reconnected when the then-prime minister enlisted d’Alpuget to write his biography, her best-known work.
Hawke confessed their romance began many years before his divorce from first wife Hazel Hawke in 1995, with the ink drying on his second marriage to d’Alpuget a short time later.
The love affair was criticised by the public and the Hawke children, with the former prime minister saying in the years before his 2019 death he was grateful for a thawing in the tensions between his family and d’Alpuget.
In her later years, she continued to keep up public life appearances, such as interviews with ABC’s Nightlife in November 2025, where she discussed the tumultuous journey of her public image and her love life after the loss of her husband.
D’Alpuget was pictured attending the state funeral of former federal Labor minister Graham Richardson, who had been instrumental in installing Bob Hawke as a leader of the party.
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