John Carlin Biography

Award-Winning Journalist and New York Times Best-Selling Author, Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made a Nation, Inspiration for the Oscar-Nominated Film, Invictus

John Carlin in an award-winning British journalist and author whose books have been translated into 18 languages. His inspiring book on Nelson Mandela, New York Times best-seller Playing the Enemy, was the basis for the Clint Eastwood movie Invictus, starring Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon.

A foreign correspondent covering the wars in Central America in the eighties, South Africa’s transition from racial tyranny to democracy in the nineties and, from Washington, the second Clinton presidential term, Carlin has reported from more than 50 countries and written for The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, TIME, Financial Times, The Times and The Observer, among many others. Bilingual, able to write equally fluently in English and Spanish, he has reported frequently on world affairs for Spain’s leading newspaper, El País.

Carlin worked as writer and producer on two major Mandela TV documentaries, one for PBS, Emmy-nominated The Long Walk of Nelson Mandela, and one for ESPN, Emmy-winner The 16th Man. He has been involved in numerous other documentaries for the BBC, Channel Four (UK) and others on politics and/or sport.

Equally authoritative writing about politics, race or sport, he has written Rafael Nadal’s official biography, a book about the tragic and heroic story of the Paralympic athlete Oscar Pistorius and another about the world’s biggest soccer franchise, Real Madrid, as well as a short and intimate biography titled Knowing Mandela.

Carlin has been a pundit on TV and radio in many countries—from the U.S., to Australia, to Chile—over 30 years and was an on-screen analyst for CBS when Mandela died in December 2013. He was won several awards for his work in the U.S., UK, Spain and Italy, including Spain’s top “Ortega y Gasset” journalism prize, the British Press Award (UK Pulitzer equivalent) for “Food and Drink Writer of the Year” in 2004 and an award received from the hands of the King of Spain in 2009 for his book Playing the Enemy. He has delivered speeches on Mandela as the quintessential example of leadership (in any field) and on other subjects to business, legal, academic and high school audiences in the U.S., UK, Italy, France, South Korea, Argentina, Colombia and Chile.

The Bruce Willis movie Live Free or Die Hard was based on an article Carlin wrote for Wired magazine titled A Farewell to Arms.

Carlin was born in London to a Spanish mother and Scottish father and was educated in Argentina and England. He obtained a master’s degree in English language and literature at Oxford University. He has lived in eight countries and is now based in London. Carlin has one son, James Nelson. His enduring passion is Shakespeare but the current love of his life is Raymond Chandler, all of whose books he has recently read for the fourth time.

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