Xiaolu Ma (Harvard Ph.D. '17, Comparative Literature) has received an Honorable Mention in the 2025 competition for the International Comparative Literature Association's Anna Balakian Prize for her book Transpatial Modernity: Chinese Cultural Encounters with Russia via Japan (1880–1930), published in 2024 through the Harvard University Asia Center Publications Program.

Transpatial Modernity offers the first in-depth account of the triangular relationship among Chinese, Japanese, and Russian literature and culture in the modern era, [and] reveals how Chinese writers translated and appropriated Russian cultural tropes through the intermediary of Japanese writing in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Dr. Ma was commended for her "command of Chinese, Russian and Japanese … as she crosses the boundaries of languages and cultures with authority and insight."

During her time at Harvard, Dr. Ma was a 2016-17 RIJS Dissertation Completion Fellow and received RIJS support over multiple summers for language study and doctoral research. She is currently an Assistant Professor in the Division of Humanities at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.