Weight Paperback by Jeanette Winterson

Product Details

• Publisher: Vintage Canada (2006-08-15)
• Language: English
• Paperback: 176 pages
• ISBN-13: 9780676974232
• Item Weight: 136.08 grams
• Dimensions: 18.14 x 13.03 x 1.19 cm

A strikingly original and profound retelling of the Atlas myth from the award-winning author of Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit.


Condemned to shoulder the world forever by the gods he dared defy, the Titan Atlas believes freedom is beyond reach—until an unexpected visit from Heracles, the only man strong enough to share his burden.

Jeanette Winterson’s bold retelling of the myth of Atlas and Heracles asks timeless questions about choice, coercion, and the price of perseverance. Into this ancient story she threads the modern world—its loneliness, its beauty, its science—crafting a narrative that spans from the birth of the cosmos to the first dog launched into space. The result is a dazzling fusion of myth and memoir, philosophy and fable.

First published alongside Margaret Atwood's The Penelopiad as part of the Myths series, Weight remains one of Winterson’s most beloved works—a compact masterpiece of visionary wit, wisdom, and imagination.

About the Author

A novelist whose honours include England’s Whitbread Prize, and the American Academy’s E. M. Forster Award, as well as the Prix d’argent at the Cannes Film Festival, JEANETTE WINTERSON burst onto the literary scene as a very young woman in 1985 with Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. Her subsequent novels, including Sexing the Cherry, The Passion, Written on the Body, and The PowerBook, have also gone on to receive great international acclaim. She lives in London and the Cotswolds.