Myra Ah Chee

Myra Ah Chee (born 13 April 1932), also known as Kanakiya Myra Ah Chee, is an Aboriginal Australian artist, interpreter and translator, storyteller, and author. In 2021 she published her autobiography, Nomad Girl: my life on the Gibber Plains and beyond.

Biography Myra Ah Chee is a Southern Aranda (Pertame) and Luritja woman, born at Oodnadatta, South Australia, on 13 April 1932. She is the daughter of Molly Niningaya and Dick Taylor Junior (an Aboriginal man who worked with Afghan cameleers in Australia) and she was born at the Australian Inland Mission Hospital at Oodnadatta. She was named after Sister Myra, the nursing sister there, who delivered her. She is the granddaughter of Charlie Apma and the niece of Undelya (Minnie) Apma. Afterwards they made their first home in the Adelaide Hills and Fred continued work as an electrician and spent periods of time (several months in total) working at the Maralinga nuclear tests. where Fred began working at the Power House and, by the end of his career, was the chief there. In Alice Springs Ah Chee began working as a gallery attendant at the Centre for Aboriginal Artists and Craftsmen and, from the early 1980s, began working as a teacher demonstrator and interpreter/translator at the Institute for Aboriginal Development. Here she worked alongside Cliff Goddard on the Yankunytjatjara sections of the Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara to English Dictionary (1987). She also worked at the Alice Springs Hospital and Central Australian Aboriginal Congress as a liaison officer/interpreter. In her retirement she committed much more time to her art and most of her works were acrylic on canvas.

Her 2021 autobiography, Nomad Girl, was shortlisted for the Non-fiction prize at the 2022 Chief Minister's NT Book Awards.

Publications

Ah Chee, Kanakiya Myra, and Rive, Linda (2021). Nomad girl : my life on the gibber plains and beyond. Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra, ACT.

Ah Chee's photograph collection, the "Myra Ah Chee Collection", is available through AIATSIS.