Uma Shirodkar is a literary translator and editor based in Mumbai. Her interests lie in underexplored genres in Marathi literature including women authors, and 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 was a 2022 South Asia Speaks Translations Fellow mentored by Arunava Sinha, and currently serves as Program Coordinator for the fellowship. She also serves as the Translations Editor (Fiction) at The Bombay Literary Magazine.
A postgraduate of Ahmedabad University (Diploma in Translation and Creative Writing), Uma also served as Visiting Faculty in Marathi Language and Communication at Jai Hind College, Mumbai (Empowered Autonomous). Her English and Marathi translations have appeared in Hammock Magazine, Guernica Magazine, Hakara Journal, Gulmohar Quarterly and On Eating.
She has translated Ironstrong Women, a work of narrative nonfiction about Maharashtra’s marginalised Ghisaadi-Lohar blacksmith community by social activist Deepa Pawar (forthcoming from Zubaan in 2027) and is also a co-translator on the forthcoming Blaft Anthology of Marathi Pulp Fiction (2027). She is currently working on a translation of Khol Khol Dushkal Dole (2023), an award-winning work of urban existentialist fiction by novelist Pradeep Kokare, and a volume of short stories by Marathi horror author Ratnakar Matkari.
