Ana Irene Cummins was born in Córdoba, Argentina and became a speaker of French, possessed of a basic knowledge of Italian and Portuguese. In Argentina she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism in 1970 and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Modern Literatures, English and French, in 1977. She worked there as a teacher and as a journalist writing satire on social and political issues. Also a painter, she had her first solo exhibition of paintings in 1978 in Cordoba. She then worked in England as an interpreter, translator, journalist and teacher and studied music and singing. She married an Australian in Greece in 1981.
In Australia she has worked as an interpreter, translator, teacher, journalist and co-ordinator for the Migrant Women's Artists Group (with whom she has participated in collective exhibitions), as a broadcaster at Radio 3EA on Hispanoamerican poetry, children's poetry and other topics. She has worked as a journalist with Radio 3EA producing news and current affairs for Spanish language programs and has been a member of the Australian Journalists Association. In 1967 she received an award from the Los Andes newspaper in Argentina for her short story Desde Abajo [From Below]. She has read her work at the Fringe Spoleto festivals in 1984 and 1986 and at the Australian Multicultural Writers Association in 1990.
