‘Love one another’: Blanche d’Alpuget pens final words
Duncan Murray |
Celebrated author Blanche d’Alpuget, the widow of former prime minister Bob Hawke, has been remembered as a one-off personality who lived life on her own terms.
Her family confirmed in a statement that she died on Tuesday aged 82 following complications from influenza.
“We will miss her force, her humour, her curiosity and her love beyond measure,” the family said on Wednesday.
“She was full of vitality, generosity and curiosity, with an extraordinary appetite for beauty, ideas, history, new places and spirited conversation.”
The family shared a final statement from the celebrated writer and giant of Australian public life.
“Our highest calling and greatest achievement is love, the rule of life,” she said.
“Love one another.”
Having never lost her appetite for life, d’Alpuget refused to be confined by convention or by other people’s expectations of who she should be, the family said.
Just two years before her death, at age 80, she swam with whale sharks in Indonesia and a year later published her final novel, a murder mystery entitled The Bunny Club.
Australia had lost a true one-off, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said.
“As a writer, she was as 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.
“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.
“Our hearts right now with her family and all who loved her.”
She is survived by her son, artist and sculptor Louis Pratt, daughter-in-law Brianna and granddaughter Sienna.
The author married Mr Hawke in 1995 after a tumultuous on-again, off-again affair that ran throughout the tenure of his prime ministership.
The pair, who met at a party in 1970, remained together for 24 years until his death in 2019.
Mr Hawke controversially divorced his first wife, the popular Hazel, in 1994, which caused great family upheaval. She died in 2013.
Born in Sydney on January 3, 1944, d’Alpuget was shaped by early travels in Indonesia, Malaysia and Europe with first husband and diplomat, Tony Pratt, with whom she had her son.
She began a more than six-decade career as a writer at The Daily Mirror and Woman’s Day in Sydney and later at the News of the World in London.
Gaining literary acclaim for her fictional works, d’Alpuget was also a lauded biographer, including a 1982 book on her later husband titled, Robert J. Hawke: A Biography.
Among a flood of tributes were several from prominent figures from across the Labor Party and publishing industry.
Federal minister Chris Bowen said d’Alpuget had cemented herself in the nation’s culture and memory.
“Blanche was always delightful company. She lit up a room and was always full of joy and empathy,” Mr Bowen said.
A former publicity agent for the author described her “incredible aura, an infectious, positive energy that swept up everyone around her”.
“Indefatigable, quick-witted, curious and endlessly interesting, she was one of the most remarkable people we’ve had the privilege of working with,” the agency said.
AAP