Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast

In 1988 Anna Funder was a student in Berlin, unaware that the East German dissidents she had befriended were about to have their lives changed by the fall of the Berlin Wall. Years later these events would change her own life, inspiring her to pen her award winning book Stasiland. 

For the small communities of scientists, researchers and support staff who live in Antarctica, Midwinter means a day spent in almost total darkness, and, in temperatures hovering around -20 degrees, a dip in the Antarctic waters. It also when the Australian Antarctic Medal is awarded, which recognises “those who have rendered outstanding service in scientific research or exploration in connection with an Australian Antarctic expedition, or in support of such work, for 12 months or more in the Antarctic region”. Guest: Shaun Gillies, Engineering Services Supervisor at Davis Station, Antarctica

A lesser known artistic project of Arthur Boyd is on display at the National Gallery of Australia. Arthur Boyd: Tapestries

The 20 tapestries, commissioned by Boyd, were part of his extensive artistic exploration of the life of Saint Francis, from the Manufactura de Tapeçarias de Portalegre, Portugal.

Guest: Elspeth Pitt, Senior Curator, Australian Art, at the National Gallery of Australia

It's “perhaps the most polarised choice of any election in the world in recent memory”. Increasing gang violence related to the cocaine trade is front of mind for voters, who are split between “bookish” philosopher and ex-Communist Iván Cepeda, and Abelardo de la Espriella, a populist, hard-right lawyer with no political experience who dubs himself “El Tigre”. Guest: Laura Lizarazo, Associate Director for the Andean region at the Control Risks Global Risk consultancy. 

Former Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham is about to be sworn in as an MP for Makerfield at Westminster, but the biggest question in UK politics now is how long until he’s sworn in as Labour’s new Prime Minister? Guest: Emily Maitlis, journ­al­ist, broad­caster and co-host of the pod­cast ‘The News Agents’

Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ, and its English translation by Lin King has been awarded the 2026 International Booker Prize. It is the first time the award has been given to a Taiwanese writer, or to a work translated from Mandarin Chinese.

Sophie Cape was forced to give up a promising career as an elite athlete, first as a downhill skier, and then as a track cyclist, after a series of catastrophic physical injuries left her unable to continue. From a place of deep personal crisis, Sophie found a new passion as an artist, and has taken her creative outlet to the same physical extremes that marked her time as a sportswoman.

Guest: Award winning artist, Sophie Cape

Archaeologists in Egypt were amazed to find a fragment of Homer's epic poem the Iliad stuffed inside a 1,600 year-old mummy. The discovery prompted questions as to how and why the papyrus sheet written in ancient Greek came to be there. 

Australian playwright Finegan Kruckemeyer has won the prestigious BBC World Service International Audio Drama Competition for an audio play about four teenagers in an Irish cemetery.  

Research commissioned by the UK’s Royal Society for the Protection of Birds shows a tenfold increase in birding by Gen Zs since 2018, within a 47% rise in birdwatching by people of all ages over that time.

And at home, BirdLife Australia’s annual Aussie Bird Count survey recorded a record-breaking 5 million birds counted by nearly 64,000 people across Australia in 2025.

Guest: Louise Williams,  President of the Hunter Bird Observers Club, and PhD candidate at the University of Newcastle.