Reading Il vestito più leggero (The Lightest Dress) by Marina Guglielmi means embarking on a journey through some of the most difficult times of the protagonist’s life: the passing of her mother. I read it while thinking about many of my friends who have already lost their mothers; they often share memories of the good times they experienced together, but also the visceral pain they felt on the day when their mother could no longer be called or visited; and the profound emptiness left behind by a loss that very often no one else can fill. I thought about friends who work abroad and could not make it on time for a very last goodbye. Many of us whose mothers are alive find ourselves wondering how we will cope with that moment when it comes, and who will be there to support us. Gugliemi finds the words to express her visceral pain through an elegant and introspective memoir about a difficult moment in everyone’s life.
In Il vestito più leggero two women share the uncertain space of waiting: “we are sisters, friends, mothers, daughters, enemies. You and I are everything” (10, all translations are mine). Their female genealogy is not linear but, rather, complementary, permeating both of their lives. Within the “mother-daughter” relationship, these two roles are never the only ones they inhabit; instead, they move fluidly through a constellation of shifting female “characters,” as much contemporary Italian women’s writing have captured. Guglielmi’s The Lightest Dress belongs to this tradition of complex, visceral, and profound bonds that are revealed through writing. The younger woman watches over the other, awaiting her disappearance. She knows that it will happen, but she does not know exactly when, how, or who will be there with her.
In order to come to terms with this moment, the daughter turns back to the past they shared, a safe space, guiding readers through the discovery of this bond: “twelve places for twelve days of waiting, or perhaps years; I am no longer sure how much time has passed since I entered here” (11). In the red notebook, the younger woman records moments from the past through visits to twelve rooms in which she was with her mother or alone; rooms that contain the universe of their genealogy. It is a private form of writing, recounting the history of their family from childhood in Tunis—where the author was born—to the final day without lipstick, because her mother applied makeup to her lips “only on festive evenings.” It is therefore not a day of collective euphoria to be faced with a “crimson mouth” (115).
As the memoir unfolds, writing also becomes public and transforms into a collective experience. The red notebook, which helped the daughter mitigate her trauma, recalls the diary of someone who writes in an attempt to process emotions and overcome difficulties. The void left by a mother’s death is not easily overcome—perhaps it never is—not even by meticulously recording every detail. Yet, Guglielmi undertakes this task with delicacy, restoring a sense of love and care to their relationship.
The rooms they inhabit belong to them—or perhaps they are entirely the author’s own—in which memories of emotions, wounds, and fragments of happiness fill the void that will emerge later: “time is short, this is evident from many details; once it is over, only the word will remain, not the body” (94). As they move through the rooms, another death is recalled, that of the protagonist’s grandfather, and it is the daughter herself who helps her mother to mitigate the trauma through her presence and the lightness of youth, accompanied by the songs of Mina and Patty Pravo: “We laughed like mad throughout the entire journey, do you remember? We never stopped” (37). The chapters also introduce a kaleidoscope of other names which the author may perhaps return to at a later stage, in other works.
One of the memoir’s greatest strengths lies in Guglielmi’s writing, which renders every detail with elegance. As the title itself already suggests, clothing, colors, and objects acquire symbolic significance, becoming means through which memory takes shape. The book is not merely read; rather, it is experienced as an emotion.
The Lightest Dress, which received a Special Mention at the 36th Italo Calvino Prize, is a refined work. It is a form of writing capable of transforming the experience of mourning into a meditation on the love between mother and daughter, that continues to exist beyond absence. For all these reasons, having the book translated into English would be immensely worthwhile, allowing readers from everywhere to embark on the same introspective journey.
Francesca Calamita became an Associate Professor at the University of Virginia (USA) in 2021, where she taught across the Departments of Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese; Women, Gender, and Sexuality; Global Studies; Media Studies; and General Education. She is a scholar of women’s writing, with a particular focus on women’s relationships with food and the body, as well as gender politics and women’s rights in Italy and Europe. A widely published scholar, she is currently a Visiting Professor at the University for Foreigners of Siena and a steering committee member of the Centre for the Study of Contemporary Women’s Writing of the University of London. She is the author of Ti trovo cambiata, an analysis of gender equality in Italy today, which was presented at the Italian Chamber of Deputies in May 2026.
This review appeared first in Italian in the weekly magazine Noi donne. We are publishing here Francesca Calamita’s translation and updated version of the original article.