Vale Blanche d’Alpuget
Author Blanche d’Alpuget has died, aged 82.
The author’s family writes:
The family of Blanche d’Alpuget is deeply saddened to announce that Blanche died on 8 September 2026, aged 82, following complications from influenza.
Blanche wrote and 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.
Blanche married Bob Hawke in 1995. Theirs was a great love, and they shared almost 24 years of life, travel and companionship until his death in 2019.
Her appetite for life never left her. At 80, she returned to Indonesian waters to swim with whale sharks in Raja Ampat. At 81, she published her final novel, the murder mystery The Bunny Club, which she said held a deeper metaphysical meaning that astute readers would recognise.
Earlier in her life, Blanche lived and travelled in Indonesia, Malaysia and Europe with her first husband, diplomat Tony Pratt, with whom she had her son, Louis. Those experiences later inspired much of her early fiction. Tony died on 5 July 2026.
Blanche is survived by her son, artist and sculptor Louis Pratt; her daughter-in-law, Brianna; and her granddaughter, Sienna. She was a devoted mother to Louis and loved being Gigi to Sienna, a role that brought her enormous joy. She was also very fond of Bob’s children, her stepchildren Sue Pieters-Hawke, Rosslyn Dillon and Stephen Hawke, and their children and grandchildren.
We will remember Blanche as someone who lived fearlessly and took delight in living. We will miss her force, her humour, her curiosity and her love beyond measure.
Blanche wished to leave these words:
“Our highest calling and greatest achievement is love, the rule of life. Love one another.”
About Blanche d’Alpuget
Blanche d’Alpuget, born in Sydney on 3 January 1944, was an acclaimed Australian novelist, biographer, essayist and journalist whose career spanned more than six decades. She began in newspapers, working at The Daily Mirror and Woman’s Day in Sydney and later at the News of the World on Fleet Street. Her years living and travelling in Indonesia and Malaysia profoundly shaped her early fiction.
Her first book, Mediator: A Biography of Sir Richard Kirby (1977), established her as a serious nonfiction writer. Her novels Monkeys in the Dark (1980) and Turtle Beach (1981) were acclaimed for their portrayals of Southeast Asia and won a series of literary prizes including The Age Novel of the Year Award, the PEN Golden Jubilee Award and the South Australian Premier’s Award; Turtle Beach was adapted for film. Winter in Jerusalem (1986) won the inaugural Australasian Prize for Commonwealth Literature, and White Eye (1993) turned to biotechnology and environmental ethics.
Her bestselling Robert J. Hawke: A Biography (1982) became a landmark of Australian political writing and was credited with helping Hawke’s rise to the Labor leadership and prime ministership.
After a long break from writing, Blanche returned with On Longing, Hawke: The Prime Minister, the five-volume “Birth of the Plantagenets” series, Bob Hawke: The Complete Biography and, at 81, The Bunny Club. Her first novel, Monkeys in the Dark, is due to be published in Indonesian translation next year.
Blanche chaired the Australian Society of Authors in 1991 and served on the boards of the Copyright Agency, the Australian Film Commission and the ACT Arts Advisory Council. As an Austcare Goodwill Ambassador from 1992 to 1996, she wrote about the plight of refugees from Indochina, the former Yugoslavia and Afghanistan. She was a life member of Inala and served as its patron for more than two decades, supporting its work with people with disability, and remained a lifelong friend, supporter and advocate after retiring from the role.
Her life was the subject of Derek Rielly’s Fridays with Blanche, published by Allen & Unwin in 2025.
Category: Obituaries
