Biography

David Bannon is a writer and translator, best known for the books Elements of Subtitles and Wounded in Spirit. He has translated subtitles for many top-rated prime time shows, including East of Eden (2008), The Great Queen Seondeok (2009), Dong Yi (2010), The Greatest Love (2011), Soldier (2012), Lights and Shadows (2011) and Gu Family Book (2013). He translates from Korean-to-English and German-to-English, notably the works of Friedrich Rückert. Bannon has appeared on Samurai (1997), Samurai Warrior (1999), Secrets of the Warrior's Power (2001), Samurai Warrior (2006), and The Discovery Channel (The Secrets of the Warrior's Power (1997)) and has been been interviewed by NPR, Fox News at Seven (1988) and The Wall Street Journal.

Bannon was born in Washington State in the United States. The son of photographer Dennis Dilley, he left home at age 19 to travel the world, spending many years in Asia. He taught college for two decades and was curator of Asian art for the Florence Museum of Art and History in South Carolina, USA. In 2006, Bannon was convicted on charges of criminal impersonation. He was sentenced to five years, serving three prior to his release. Married twice, he lost his only child, Jessica Autumn Bannon, to a fentanyl-laced heroin overdose in 2015.

Bannon publishes on grief, art, history, culture, and translation, as well as delivering lectures at libraries, museums and conferences. He lives in South Carolina.
- IMDb mini biography by: David Bannon

Films are entertainment. Their subtitles should be entertaining.

We must feel a translation directly in our hearts, not as though approaching it through a classroom or historical setting.

Subtitling is fun. It is thrilling to find just the right inflection, the perfect phrase that captures as much of the original as possible. . . . a translation that communicates what is said and unsaid is a wonder to behold.

Each translator may be brave or foolhardy, I suppose, a Don Quixote in his or her own way. And yet the pursuit is noble. We create a bridge where none existed before: a shaky bridge at times, perhaps even rickety, but a bridge nonetheless, the first of its kind for others to use and build upon.