John Carlin (journalist)
{{short description|British journalist and author|bot=PearBOT 5}}
{{EngvarB|date=August 2014}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2014}}
{{Infobox writer
| name = John Carlin
| image = John Carlin (journalist) (cropped).jpg
| caption = John Carlin in 2016
| birth_date = {{b-da|12 May 1956}}
| birth_place = London, United Kingdom
| occupation = Journalist, writer
| genre = Journalism, sports, non-fiction
}}
John Carlin (born 12 May 1956)[http://www.johncarlin.eu/curriculum/4535132359 Official site of John Carlin] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180324162427/http://www.johncarlin.eu/curriculum/4535132359 |date=24 March 2018 }}, Curriculum Vitae 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.[http://www.johncarlin.eu/jc_mystory.html Official site of John Carlin]{{dead link|date=April 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}, My Story
After returning to England, he was educated at St. George's College, Weybridge, and went on to earn an MA in English Language and Literature from Oxford University. He has one child.
Career
Carlin began his journalism career at the Buenos Aires Herald in 1981, writing about film, football and politics. In 1982, he began a six-year stint in Mexico and Central America working for, among others, The Times and Sunday Times, the Toronto Star, BBC, CBC, and ABC News before joining the staff of The Independent at the newspaper's launch in 1986.
Carlin was The Independent's South Africa bureau chief from 1989 to 1995. In 1993, Carlin wrote and presented a BBC documentary on the South African Third Force, his first television work.[http://www.johncarlin.eu/jc_tv.html Official site of John Carlin]{{dead link|date=April 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}, TV
From 1995 to 1998 he was the United States bureau chief for The Independent on Sunday.
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.[https://www.variety.com/article/VR1117467113.html?categoryid=13&cs=1 Fox eyes 'WW3.com' as tentpole for 1999] Variety.com, 27 January 1998 When this project stalled, its script was rewritten into the 2007 film, Live Free or Die Hard (Die Hard 4.0).[https://www.variety.com/article/VR1117908291.html?categoryId=13&cs=1 The 'Die Hard' is cast for scribe Richardson] Variety.com, 26 July 2004
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.
He has since written regularly for La Vanguardia.{{Cite web |url=http://www.lavanguardia.com/autores/john-carlin.html |title=Vanguardia: index |access-date=2018-06-02}} He also writes regularly for Argentine newspaper Clarín.[https://www.clarin.com/autor/john-carlin.html John Carlin] Clarin.com
Carlin was writer and interviewer for the 1999 episode "The Long Walk of Nelson Mandela" of the American PBS series Frontline.[https://www.nytimes.com/1999/05/25/arts/television-review-nelson-mandela-man-leader-and-of-course-legend.html?n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/Subjects/T/Television Television Review; Nelson Mandela: Man, Leader and, of Course, Legend] The New York Times, 25 May 1999 It was also broadcast as "The First Accused" in South Africa by the SABC.
=Awards=
Carlin won the 2000 Spanish Ortega y Gasset Award for journalism, for an article in Spanish newspaper El País. In 2004 he won the 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|date=September 2017}}
Nelson Mandela
Much of Carlin's career has dealt with the politics of South Africa.{{citation needed|date=January 2013}}
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."[http://www.johncarlin.eu/jc_enemy.html Official site of John Carlin] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090612073211/http://www.johncarlin.eu/jc_enemy.html |date=12 June 2009 }}, Review Extracts, Playing the Enemy Mandela wrote the foreword to Carlin's 2004 Spanish language book, Heroica Tierra Cruel, about Africa.
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.[https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/aug/31/sportandleisure.politics When Nelson had a ball] The Guardian, 31 August 2008 The book became the basis for Clint Eastwood's 2009 film, Invictus, starring Morgan Freeman as Mandela.{{citation needed|date=January 2013}}
Carlin has written for, among others, The Times, the Financial Times, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Observer, the Guardian, the New Statesman, Wired and New Republic.
Other works
In August 2011, Carlin collaborated with tennis superstar Rafael Nadal on the latter's autobiography Rafa (Hyperion, 2012, {{ISBN|1401310923}}).{{cite web|url=https://www.espn.com/tennis/usopen11/story/_/id/6896793/us-open-twenty-things-learn-rafael-nadal-autobiography|title=U.S. Open – Twenty things we learn in Rafael Nadal's autobiography|last=Tandon|first=Kamakshi|date=26 August 2011|publisher=ESPN|access-date=31 May 2013}}
Filmography
- War on Peace (Documentary, BBC) (1993) (Writer/Interviewer)
- The Long Walk of Nelson Mandela (Documentary) 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
- Chase Your Shadow: The Trials of Oscar Pistorius, Atlantic Books (UK), {{ISBN|9781782393269}}, 2014
- Rafa, Hyperion (US), {{ISBN|1401310923}} and Little Brown (UK), {{ISBN|1847445144}}, August 2011
- Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game that Made a Nation, {{ISBN|978-1-59420-174-5}}, Penguin, August 2008
- [https://openlibrary.org/b/OL13234262M/Heroica-Tierra-Cruel Heroica Tierra Cruel] {{ISBN|978-84-322-0882-9}}, September 2004 {{in lang|es}}
- White Angels: Beckham, Real Madrid and the New Football, {{ISBN|978-0-7475-7345-6}}, Bloomsbury, September 2004
Comics
- Mandela and the General, Plough Publishing House (US), {{ISBN|978-0874868203}}, November 2018 (Writer, with art by Oriol Malet)
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- {{official|http://www.johncarlin.eu}}
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20091022105516/http://www.journalisted.com/john-carlin John Carlin] at Journalisted.com
- {{IMDb name|1985343}}
- [https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/mandela/ The Long Walk of Nelson Mandela] PBS.org
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Carlin, John}}
Category:English people of Spanish descent
Category:English expatriates in Argentina
Category:English male journalists
Category:20th-century English male writers
Category:Alumni of Lincoln College, Oxford
Category:English people of Scottish descent
Category:People educated at St George's College, Weybridge
Category:English expatriates in Mexico