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 St. George's College, Weybridge, and went on to earn an MA in English Language and Literature from Oxford University.

Carlin began his journalism career at the Buenos Aires Herald in 1981, writing about film, football and politics.

[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.

[8] Carlin was writer and interviewer for the 1999 episode "The Long Walk of Nelson Mandela" of the American PBS series Frontline.

"[10] Mandela wrote the foreword to Carlin's 2004 Spanish language book, Heroica Tierra Cruel, about Africa.