John Carlin

John Carlin (born 12 May 1956) 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.

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.

From 1995 to 1998 he was the United States bureau chief for The Independent on Sunday. When this project stalled, its script was rewritten into the 2007 film, Live Free or Die Hard (Die Hard 4.0).

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. He also writes regularly for Argentine newspaper Clarín.

Carlin was writer and interviewer for the 1999 episode "The Long Walk of Nelson Mandela" of the American PBS series Frontline. It was also broadcast as "The First Accused" in South Africa by the SABC. Mandela wrote the foreword to Carlin's 2004 Spanish language book, Heroica Tierra Cruel, about Africa. The book became the basis for Clint Eastwood's 2009 film, Invictus, starring Morgan Freeman as Mandela.

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, ).

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)