Nelson Mandela works go digital

South Africa's first black president and revered world leader Nelson Mandela is to have his collection of articles, speeches, letters and trial documents digitized and made available to researchers in a deal with publishing company ProQuest.

No Easy Walk to Freedom will appear on the African Writers Series, a ProQuest digital collection of 20th Century words by black literary works. " Nelson Mandela holds a unique place in the global imagination as a symbol of African freedom and independence, and No Easy Walk to Freedom is one of the most significant works of the anti-apartheid movement," said Publishing Director Dan Burnstone. The African Writers Series appears under the Chardwyk-Healey brand.

Founded in 1962 The African Writers Series is a digital collection based on the Heinemann printed series of the same name and was created to bring black African writers to an African readership. No Easy Walk to Freedom was first published in 1965 by Heinemann and re-printed in 1973 as part of the African Writers Series. At the time Nelson Mandela was still incarcerated. The African Writers Series features 2,200 poems, prose and plays.

ProQuest has indexed all the content by the details of first publication, including date, place, publisher and language.