Since his childhood, Simon Leyland has been fascinated by languages. In defiance of his parents, he becomes a translator and singlemindedly pursues his goal of learning all the languages spoken around the Mediterranean. From London he follows his wife Livia to Triest, where she has inherited a publishing house. In this city of important literary figures he believes he has found the ideal place for his work – until a medical error throws him off course. However, this apparent catastrophe turns out to be a turning point and an opportunity to once again completely reinvent his life. After an interval of several years, Pascal Mercier's The Weight of Words is about the freedom that literature gives us and explores the question of how free we are in the choices we make in our lives.