diff --git a/crates/wasmi/src/module/mod.rs b/crates/wasmi/src/module/mod.rs
index 4733cb4703..028dbc8ad3 100644
--- a/crates/wasmi/src/module/mod.rs
+++ b/crates/wasmi/src/module/mod.rs
@@ -201,7 +201,9 @@ impl Module {
     ///
     /// # Note
     ///
-    /// This parses, validates and translates the buffered Wasm bytecode.
+    /// - This parses, validates and translates the buffered Wasm bytecode.
+    /// - The `wasm` may be encoded as WebAssembly binary (`.wasm`) or as
+    ///   WebAssembly text format (`.wat`).
     ///
     /// # Errors
     ///
@@ -211,7 +213,10 @@ impl Module {
     /// - If Wasmi cannot translate the Wasm bytecode.
     ///
     /// [`Config`]: crate::Config
-    pub fn new(engine: &Engine, wasm: &[u8]) -> Result<Self, Error> {
+    pub fn new(engine: &Engine, wasm: impl AsRef<[u8]>) -> Result<Self, Error> {
+        let wasm = wasm.as_ref();
+        #[cfg(feature = "wat")]
+        let wasm = &wat::parse_bytes(wasm)?[..];
         ModuleParser::new(engine).parse_buffered(wasm)
     }