Ingrid Gimm Lansford

June 25, 1935 – March 29, 2022

Ingrid Lansford

We are saddened to learn of the death of longtime AATIA member Ingrid Lansford earlier this year. Ingrid was born in Denmark, although her parents, Rudolph and Gerda Gimm, were German. Ingrid’s father taught at a German school in Denmark, and Ingrid grew up speaking both German and Danish. She also studied English during her youth.

Ingrid moved to the US in 1954 after marrying her first husband, David Luckstead, an American. The couple settled in Corpus Christi, where Ingrid enrolled in Del Mar College. After completing her studies at Del Mar, she enrolled at Texas A&M University (then known as Texas A&I) in Kingsville and earned a B.A. in English with a minor in Spanish. Ingrid moved to Austin to complete her education at the University of Texas, receiving her PhD in English and American Literature in 1988. During her graduate studies, she added Italian to her list of languages. In 1981 she married Ed Lansford, a biochemistry professor at Southwestern University in Georgetown, TX, where she and Ed lived until shortly before her death.

Ingrid started her career as a technical translator of German scientific and medical articles, but her true passion was literature, so she began to seek literary translation work. She went on to publish numerous short story translations in literary magazines such as Metamorphosis, No Man’s Land, and Dimension2. She also translated several books, including The Pope of the Indies, by Ib Michael, and Narcissism and Power, by Hans-Jürgen Wirth.

In 2004 Ingrid was awarded the American Scandinavian Foundation translation prize for her translation from the Danish of Love Stories from Many Lands, by Meir Aron Goldschmidt. Danish writer Jan Sonnergaard chose her to translate his work for the American market. He was so pleased with her work, that he traveled to Austin and treated Ingrid to dinner at the historic Driskill hotel.

Ingrid was a longtime member of both the American Translators Association and the American Literary Translators Association and gave readings and presentations at conferences of both organizations. She was also an active and much-loved member of AATIA’s Literary Special Interest Group (LitSIG). She was one of the contributors to Thresholds, an anthology of literary works translated by LitSIG members. Ingrid’s article about the anthology project was published in the ATA Chronicle in September 2003.