First published in 1983, The Biggest Modern Woman of the World was a finalist for the Governor General's Award for fiction and the Smith's Best First Novel Award. In this reissue you will find a new Afterword written by the author. In this exhilirating and profound novel, Anna Swan, the real-life 7–6?, 413-pound Nova Scotian Giantess renders her own autobiographical account. Born in 1846 (an 18 pound baby) to a family of crofters, Anna Swan had to sit on the floor as a child so that her head would be level with her siblings at the dinner table. Searching for a home that fits, Anna Swan first goes from Nova Scotia to New York, where P.T. Barnum bills her, at his museum of freaks, as The Biggest Modern Woman of the World. Worn down by P.T. Barnum's museum fires, she goes from New York to Europe and then to a giant farmhouse in the American mid-west, where she hopes to live out the rest of her life like a Victorian lady. Part truth, part legend, The Biggest Modern Woman of the World is a saucy romp through the traditional categories of gender, art, sexuality and nationality. There never has been a story quite like it. (2001)

SUSAN SWAN's fiction has been published in twenty countries and received numerous honours. Her first novel, The Biggest Modern Woman of the World (1983), was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award for fiction and the Smith’s Best First Novel Award, and is currently being made into a film. Her other books include the short story collection Stupid Boys are Good to Relax With (1996), the novel Last of the Golden Girls (1989), and The Wives of Bath (1993). The film adaptation of The Wives of Bath, called Lost and Delirious, has been released in 32 countries and was featured as a Premiere Selection at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival. Her most recent novel, What Casanova Told Me (2001), was published to rave reviews. Susan Swan lives in Toronto, Ontario, and is an associate professor of Humanities at York University.

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