TIME is releasing a special issue on Nelson Mandela commemorating his life in words and pictures, including tributes by Richard Stengel, Bono and Morgan Freeman. The cover features a 1990 photo of Mandela taken by Hans Gedda in Sweden during Mandela’s first trip abroad after his release from Robben Island one month before. This is the sixth time that Mandela has appeared on the cover of TIME. This issue will be on newsstands Monday alongside with this week’s regular issue featuring Carl Icahn and next week’s Person of the Year issue to be published on Wednesday, Dec. 11.
Photograph by Hans Gedda