Description: Transpatial Modernity offers the first in-depth account of the relationship among Chinese, Japanese, and Russian literature in the modern era. Xiaolu Ma discusses leading cultural figures such as Leo Tolstoy, Futabatei Shimei, and Lu Xun and demonstrates the central role of relay transculturation as the key to understanding East Asian modernity.
Brief description: Xiaolu Ma is Assistant Professor, Division of Humanities, at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
Review Quotes: Packaged with an overpowering amount of primary materials and secondary sources, this book is a major study of triangular comparisons and interactions of Russo-Japanese-Sino transculturation across a broad landscape from Pushkin to Lu Xun, all based on the author's own intimate command of three languages: Russian, Japanese, and Chinese. The author, Xiaolu Ma, writes in a dense but elegant style, whose knowledge of the Russian language gives her a great advantage, as obscure texts appear in refreshing light in this 'trans-space' of modernity. All in all, this 'snapshot' turns out to be a masterful scholarly tome and definitely a major achievement.--Leo Ou-fan Lee, Professor Emeritus of Chinese Literature, Harvard University