“The only thing that stopped our time was a beautiful sentence.”
On a quiet life based on literature

The story begins in a mansion in London.
Leyland, who was frustrated by the terminal diagnosis, finds out that it was a misdiagnosis and wants to start a new life in the mansion that his uncle left him.
We spend each day wasting time without even trying to create meaningful memories.
The only thing he does regularly is write letters to his dead wife.
Leyland sits at his desk and reflects on the past year.
As a child, I dreamed of becoming a translator, admiring my uncle, who was an oriental scholar.
He ran away from home because he hated his overbearing father and school, and worked as a night security guard at an old hotel.
The countless nights spent teaching myself translation and the joy of finally debuting as a translator.
The moment I first saw my wife on the train.
I met many writers at the publishing company my wife runs.
Days surrounded by books.
A time when I could only love literature.
But the precious people leave this world first, and the world becomes increasingly noisy.

"The Weight of Language" progresses gradually, crossing Leyland's past and present, and traversing Italy and England.
In Trieste, where his wife's publishing company was located, and in London, where his uncle's mansion is located, Leyland meets new people and discovers unexpected sides of his acquaintances.
Andrei, a Russian translator, is imprisoned for killing his lover. He reads and rereads a novel, eventually writing down the various endings he desires.
Kenneth Burke, a neighbor and friend, is a pharmacist who was brought to court for dispensing medication to illegal immigrants without a prescription, while novelist Francesca Marchese writes a novel that no one will ever see.
Mary Ann, a successful writer at a young age, suddenly announces she will stop writing, and her publishing executive mother and son, Christie, struggle to adapt to the new world.
Living their lives directly and indirectly, Leyland finally begins to write his own novel.

“Because what I write is me, and I am this writing.”
A story about self-esteem that confronts the world with a sound mind.

The characters in “The Weight of Language” live their lives with language and literature as their guides.
Because literature is presented not as a simple object of affection but as a tool for navigating life, "The Weight of Language" has a variety of meanings.
Leyland, who believes that 'everything only really exists after it has been named and spoken of' and 'you can only experience it properly if you understand it through language', obsessively checks his sanity by repeating several words in his head when he is at a crossroads between life and death.
He also writes letters to his dead wife without stopping to reflect on how he is living his new life.
Even in days of anxiety and suffering that seem to have no end, not falling into material pleasure, desire, or emptiness.
Rather, the way we cultivate our spirit through language and literature seems to suggest the most sublime attitude toward facing the world.

This same appearance can be seen in other characters as well.
After his release, Andrei translates the works of Russian exile writers.
The novelists in the work, including Marchese and Paolo, write desperately, regardless of public opinion, as if their very existence depended on it.
"The Weight of Language" reads like a case study of people who sustain their lives through literature, effectively expressing the process of life being sublimated into literature by presenting the writings they read and write in a framed manner.
The story of a character in a novel and another story that the character reads and writes… … .
Even within the novel, the boundaries between fiction and reality become increasingly blurred, and various characters and events from the European literary world unfold in a fantastical way.
This is why "The Weight of Language" is a truly authorial work, yet at the same time reads like a gift to all readers who love literature even in this hectic world.

“An elegant meditation on what language can do.”
Another masterpiece from Pascal Mercier

Pascal Mercier is considered a problematic writer in German literary criticism.
He is a philosopher who has published philosophical books such as 『The Life Style』 and 『Self-Determination』 under his real name, Peter Bieri, and is also a novelist who has written five full-length novels.
As if fully displaying his talent as a philosopher, Pascal Mercier goes beyond the typical character- and event-centered novel format and employs a unique style filled with philosophical reflections and proverbial sentences.
While some critics find the narrative and characters to be contemplative and esoteric, the general readership has responded enthusiastically to Pascal Mercier's work.
His previous work, "Night Train to Lisbon," was loved by 2 million readers in German-speaking countries alone and translated into over 30 languages, and "The Weight of Language" also received widespread support, making it to the Der Spiegel annual bestseller list.

As the Süddeutsche Zeitung evaluated it, saying that it contains “all the strengths that made Pascal Mercier a world-renowned writer” by “expressing the sharp author’s consciousness in a unique confessional style and realizing novelistic fun,” many characters, including Leyland, do not hide their emotions and express them directly.
And that feeling is a love of language and literature, a will to understand the world with clarity of mind through them.
"The Weight of Language," a work that elaborates the critical awareness of a writer and philosopher into a sophisticated novel, depicts those who strive to fully live their lives through literature in an era when the power of literature has weakened, and will deliver a powerful impression to readers who have been waiting for a deep and profound novel.