My friend Blanche d’Alpuget often spoke to me about death. She once likened it to ‘untying a million little knots’ | Derek Rielly

The woman so pivotal in Australian literature and politics blew into my orbit in a tornado of Doris Day hair and Sophia Loren lips in the winter of 2016Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastThirty-six hours before Blanche took her last breath, I negotiated the plastic tubes and mask she wore over a still beautiful face and gave her one final kiss. I wasn’t sure, then, if it was a goodbye but I knew it would be close.Who was she? Continue reading...

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