John Carlin (journalist)

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John Carlin
John Carlin in 2016
John Carlin in 2016
Born12 May 1956 (1956-05-12) (age 67)
London, United Kingdom
OccupationJournalist, writer
GenreJournalism, sports, non-fiction

John Carlin (born 12 May 1956)[1] is a British journalist and author, who deals with both sports and politics. His book Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game that Made a Nation, about former South African president Nelson Mandela, is the basis for the 2009 film Invictus.

Personal life

Carlin was born to a Scottish father and Spanish mother. He spent the first three years of his life in North London, before moving to Buenos Aires, Argentina, due to his father's posting to the British Embassy.[2]

After returning to England, he was educated at

Oxford University.[2]
He has one child.

Career

Carlin began his journalism career at the

The Independent
at the newspaper's launch in 1986.

Carlin was The Independent's South Africa bureau chief from 1989 to 1995.[1] In 1993, Carlin wrote and presented a BBC documentary on the South African Third Force, his first television work.[3]

From 1995 to 1998 he was the United States bureau chief for

The Independent on Sunday.[1]

In 1997, Carlin wrote an article titled "A Farewell to Arms" for Wired magazine about cyberwarfare. This was originally intended to form the basis of a 1999 film, WW3.com.[4] When this project stalled, its script was rewritten into the 2007 film, Live Free or Die Hard (Die Hard 4.0).[5]

In 1998, Carlin joined El País, the world's leading Spanish-language newspaper, where he worked as a senior international writer until being sacked in October 2017 after an article highly critical of the Spanish government and King regarding the Catalonian independence referendum. [6] He has since written regularly for La Vanguardia.[7] He also writes regularly for Argentine newspaper Clarín.[8]

Carlin was writer and interviewer for the 1999 episode "The Long Walk of Nelson Mandela" of the American

Frontline.[9] It was also broadcast as "The First Accused" in South Africa by the SABC.[3]

Awards

Carlin won the 2000 Spanish

British Press Awards "Food and Drink Writer of the Year" prize. He has won numerous other awards for his writing in Spain and Italy.[citation needed
]

Nelson Mandela

Much of Carlin's career has dealt with the politics of South Africa.[citation needed]

In a 1998 interview, Mandela said of Carlin's journalism: "What you wrote and the way in which you carried out your task in this country was absolutely magnificent…it was absolutely inspiring. You have been very courageous, saying things which many journalists would never say."[10] Mandela wrote the foreword to Carlin's 2004 Spanish language book, Heroica Tierra Cruel, about Africa.[1]

In August 2008, Carlin published the book Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game that Made a Nation, about how Mandela used the 1995 Rugby World Cup to reconcile a nation driven by centuries of racial animosity.[11] The book became the basis for Clint Eastwood's 2009 film, Invictus, starring Morgan Freeman as Mandela.[citation needed]

Carlin has written for, among others,

Wall Street Journal, The Observer, the Guardian, the New Statesman, Wired and New Republic
.

Other works

In August 2011, Carlin collaborated with tennis superstar

ISBN 1401310923).[12]

Filmography

  • War on Peace (Documentary, BBC) (1993) (Writer/Interviewer)
  • PBS Frontline
     (1999) (Writer/Cast)
  • Live Free or Die Hard (2007) (Script/Article)
  • Invictus (2009) (Book)
  • The 16th Man
    (Documentary, ESPN)     (2010) (Writer/Producer)
  • This is Football
    (Documentary series, Amazon Prime)     (2019) (Executive Producer)

Bibliography

Comics

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Official site of John Carlin Archived 24 March 2018 at the Wayback Machine, Curriculum Vitae
  2. ^ a b Official site of John Carlin[permanent dead link], My Story
  3. ^ a b Official site of John Carlin[permanent dead link], TV
  4. Variety.com
    , 27 January 1998
  5. ^ The 'Die Hard' is cast for scribe Richardson Variety.com, 26 July 2004
  6. ^ El Pais sacks Times essayist John Carlin for Catalonia article attacking King of Spain The Sunday Times, 12 October 2017
  7. ^ "Vanguardia: index". Retrieved 2 June 2018.
  8. ^ John Carlin Clarin.com
  9. ^ Television Review; Nelson Mandela: Man, Leader and, of Course, Legend The New York Times, 25 May 1999
  10. ^ Official site of John Carlin Archived 12 June 2009 at the Wayback Machine, Review Extracts, Playing the Enemy
  11. ^ When Nelson had a ball The Guardian, 31 August 2008
  12. ^ Tandon, Kamakshi (26 August 2011). "U.S. Open – Twenty things we learn in Rafael Nadal's autobiography". ESPN. Retrieved 31 May 2013.

External links

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