Edward Michael Law-Yone (, nicknamed Ed Law-Yone; February 5, 1911 – June 27, 1980) was a Burmese journalist and official of

Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

and then of the Burmese government-in-exile, as well as an

author An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states: "''An author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility f ...

. He was born in Kamaing,

Myitkyina Myitkyina (, ; (Eng; ''mitchinar'') Jinghpaw: ''Myitkyina'', ) is the capital city of Kachin State in Myanmar (Burma), located from Yangon, and from Mandalay. In Burmese it means "near the big river", and Myitkyina is on the west bank of t ...

District (now part of Kachin State), British Burma. Educated at Saint Peters' School (now Basic Education High School No. 9) in Mandalay, at 16 he went to work as a clerk in the Burma-China border frontier service. He joined the Burma Railways in 1930 as a probationer and by 1938 was in charge of the rates and commercial section, traveling in that year over the recently constructed

Burma Road The Burma Road () was a road linking Burma (now known as Myanmar) with southwest China. Its terminals were Kunming, Yunnan, and Lashio, Burma. It was built while Burma was a British colony to convey supplies to China during the Second Sino ...

to survey the route proposed for linking the Burma and

Yunnan Yunnan , () is a landlocked province in the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the C ...

Indochina Mainland Southeast Asia, also known as the Indochinese Peninsula or Indochina, is the continental portion of Southeast Asia. It lies east of the Indian subcontinent and south of Mainland China and is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the west an ...

Railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

s. In August 1948, he founded ''The Nation'', Burma's most influential English language newspaper, and served as its chief editor, until his 5-year detention, following Ne Win's coup d'état in 1962. In a 1957 interview with American news broadcast ''

See It Now ''See It Now'' is an American newsmagazine and documentary series broadcast by CBS from 1951 to 1958. It was created by Edward R. Murrow and Fred W. Friendly, with Murrow as the host of the show. From 1952 to 1957, ''See It Now'' won four Emmy ...

'', he said: Law-Yone was one of the first recipients of the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts, in 1959. ''The Nation'' was shut down in May 1963, the first to be closed by the new government. In 1970, Law-Yone left Burma with his family. In exile, he lived near Lumpini Park in

Bangkok Bangkok, officially known in Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon and colloquially as Krung Thep, is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. The city occupies in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand and has an estimated populati ...

, Thailand before settling in

Silver Spring, Maryland Silver Spring is a census-designated place (CDP) in southeastern Montgomery County, Maryland, United States, near Washington, D.C. Although officially unincorporated, in practice it is an edge city, with a population of 81,015 at the 2020 ce ...

. His daughter, Wendy Law-Yone, is a journalist and writer, and his granddaughter,

Jocelyn Seagrave Jocelyn Seagrave (born September 9, 1968) is an American film and television actress, best known for playing Julie Camaletti on '' Guiding Light'' and Jessica Mitchell on Fox's '' Pacific Palisades''. Early life Seagrave's father was American a ...

, is an actress. Law-Yone was a member of the Executive Committee of the

Union of Burma Boy Scouts The Myanmar Scout Association (''formerly known as the Union of Burma Boy Scouts'') is the national Scouting organization in Myanmar. Scouting in Myanmar was started in 1916 and disbanded in 1964 due to country's political changes; the current or ...

, and was an active promoter of Scouting, taking the lead in fundraising activities and traveling to international Scouting meetings.

References

Biography of Edward Michael Law Yone

{{DEFAULTSORT:Law-Yone, Edward Michael 1911 births 1980 deaths American newspaper publishers (people) American writers of Chinese descent Burmese emigrants to the United States Burmese journalists Burmese newspaper publishers (people) Burmese people of Chinese descent Burmese writers Businesspeople from Maryland People from Kachin State Scouting and Guiding in Myanmar Writers from Maryland Scouting pioneers Ramon Magsaysay Award winners 20th-century journalists 20th-century American businesspeople