Sunday, 15 June
5.00pm

This week on Sunday Arts Virginia Trioli meets Pulitzer Prize winner Junot Diaz; we look at the artists who are re-tracing South Australia's Heysen Trail; and we have music from Paprika Balkanicus.

Junot Diaz
Dominican-American author, Junot Diaz, has written only two books in his career but both have been blockbusters. The first, Drown, was a collection of short stories published in 1996 and gave Diaz immediate notoriety as a writer to watch. Diaz's prose is a distinctive mix of English, Spanish and street slang written for the "people I grew up with", in a run-down New Jersey neighbourhood of blue collar workers and Latino immigrants. His Dominican heritage is an integral part of his storytelling and underpins the narrative of his latest book, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. The New York magazine named Oscar Wao the best novel of 2007 and it recently won the Pulitzer Prize. He was one of the high profile guests at this year's Sydney Writers Festival.

Heysen Trail
An eclectic group of established and talented artists will be heading into the wilderness of South Australia to re-trace the Heysen Trail. The trail, named after one of South Australia's great landscape painters, Sir Hans Heysen stretches over 1,000kms and traverses some of the State’s most stunning scenery. The group of nine artists will be taking their easels, sketch pads and cameras with them, and creating new art works as they explore the rugged and unforgiving landscape. The trip will allow them to discover first hand the forms, colours and light that inspired Heysen, and as their journey unfolds, so will a new artistic legacy.

Paprika Balkanicus
Paprika Balkanicus have been labelled as the hottest newcomers on the World music scene. They've won a BBC World Music Award and played with the likes of Nigel Kennedy, the World Youth Orchestra and Neil Innes. They are currently touring their wild gypsy sounds and for the very first time they have made it to Australia.

Sunday Arts will be repeated on ABC2 – Sunday, June 15 at 7:00pm