Uma Shirodkar is a literary translator and editor based in Mumbai. Her scholarly interests within culture and literature are wide-ranging, with a particular focus on underexplored genres in Marathi literature including women authors, and the critically neglected canon of weird and uncanny fiction. In 2019, she founded an Instagram platform Lyrically Obscure, where she began translating, and now aims to share Marathi literature and foster intercultural discourse among contemporary readers. She has translated authors like C.V. Joshi, Pu. La. Deshpande, Daya Pawar, Bhau Padhye, and Ratnakar Matkari among many others.
Uma has a degree in hospitality (Institute of Hotel Management and Applied Nutrition, Mumbai) and comes with over eleven years of corporate experience across various domains like retail, customer service, and marketing-communications. She was a 2022 South Asia Speaks Fellow, and currently serves as Program Assistant for the fellowship. She also serves as the Translations Editor (Fiction) at Bombay Literary Magazine.
A postgraduate of Ahmedabad University (Diploma in Translation and Creative Writing), Uma is also Visiting Faculty in Marathi Language and Communication at Jai Hind College, Mumbai (Empowered Autonomous). Her English and Marathi translations have appeared in Guernica Magazine, Hakara Journal, Gulmohar Quarterly and On Eating.
Her ongoing translation projects include a Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar-winning novel set in Bombay; and a work of narrative nonfiction about Maharashtra’s marginalised Ghisaadi-Lohar blacksmith community.
UMA SHIRODKAR 