Veteran journalist Aye Aye Win will retire from The Associated Press (AP) this week after 25 years with the bureau.
She will dedicate her time to a personal project telling the story of her late father Sein Win, also an AP reporter, through his old documents.
“I want to have my own time, I want to be my own boss,” she told The Irrawaddy.
Aye Aye Win, who is 61, is the recipient of four international journalism awards.
The most recent, from the Missouri School of Journalism, recognized her “life-long dedication to honest and courageous journalism, often at the risk of personal safety.”
She rose from apprenticing for her father at the AP during the 1988 student protests to joining the organization a year later, as Myanmar’s only female reporter.
Her career has spanned major events in the country’s recent history, including the Saffron Uprising in 2007, the devastation of Cyclone Nargis a year later and the transition to semi-civilian government in 2011.
Known for her fierce intelligence and tenacity, she was dubbed the “ax-handle” of foreign journalism in Myanmar by state media, according to the Irrawaddy.
