The New York Times is reporting that publisher W.W. Norton & Company has acquired the North American publishing rights to the graphic novel biography, Nelson Mandela: The Authorized Comic Book.  Norton plans to publish the volume, which uses interviews and archival material to chronicle Mandela’s life story, in July of 2009.

According to the Times, the book “will feature art by several young black artists.”  In 2000 Norton collaborated with the Nelson Mandela Children’s Foundation on Nelson Mandela’s Favorite African Folk Tales.