The White Dress is the final part of a trilogy of works by Nathalie Léger that began with Exposition, translated by Amanda DeMarco, and published by Les Fugitives in 2019.
Brides on Tour: peace not war
On 8 March 2008, Pippa Bacca, a 33-year-old Italian feminist artist, decided to hitchhike from Milan to Jerusalem wearing a white wedding dress to symbolise “marriage between different peoples and nations.” Her aim was to promote world peace and she intended to document her experiences by video. However, on 31 March, having temporarily separated from her fellow bride on tour, Silvia Moro, Pippa was picked up by Murat Karataş in Gezbe, Turkey. He raped and strangled her and dumped her body in a shallow grave among some bushes. Léger /Léger’s narrator meditates on Bacca’s sorrowful journey and interweaves the story of a mother and daughter’s relationship. Natasha Lehrer’s perceptive English translation was notably published on the twelfth anniversary of Bacca’s death.
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