Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    The City of Woven Streets
    Unavailable
    The City of Woven Streets
    Unavailable
    The City of Woven Streets
    Audiobook11 hours

    The City of Woven Streets

    Written by Emmi Itäranta

    Narrated by Aysha Kala

    3.5/5

    ()

    Unavailable in your country

    Unavailable in your country

    About this audiobook

    'Where itaranta shines is in her understated but compelling characters' Red star review (for MEMORY OF WATER), Publishers Weekly.

    The tapestry of life may be more fragile than it seems: pull one thread, and all will unravel.

    In the City of Woven Streets, human life has little value. You practice a craft to keep you alive, or you are an outcast, unwanted and tainted. Eliana is a young weaver in the House of Webs, but secretly knows she doesn’t really belong there. She is hiding a shameful birth defect that would, if anyone knew about it, land her in the House of the Tainted, a prison for those whose very existence is considered a curse.

    When an unknown woman with her tongue cut off and Eliana’s name tattooed on her skin arrives at the House of Webs, Eliana discovers an invisible network of power behind the city’s facade. All the while, the sea is clawing the shores and the streets are slowly drowning.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateJun 2, 2016
    ISBN9780008163037
    Unavailable
    The City of Woven Streets
    Author

    Emmi Itäranta

    Emmi Itäranta (b. 1976) was born in Tampere, Finland, where she also grew up. She holds an MA in Drama from the University of Tampere and an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Kent, UK, where she began writing her debut novel Memory of Water. Itäranta’s professional background is an eclectic blend of writing-related activities, including stints as a columnist, theatre critic, dramaturge, scriptwriter and press officer. She lives in Canterbury, UK.

    More audiobooks from Emmi Itäranta

    Related to The City of Woven Streets

    Related audiobooks

    Science Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Same River Twice

      Feb 3, 2022

      Same River Twice
      8 min read

    • Article

      Eyes To The Skies

      Sep 22, 2022

      Eyes To The Skies
      2 min read

    • Article

      The Time Machine

      Aug 4, 2021

      There’s a pattern built into this story – can you work it out from the numbers in bold at the start of each section? I’m sitting on the beach by Rhodes port, watching sailors load our luggage onto a ship bound for Rome. I don’t want to go, but my f

      7 min read

    • Article

      Mountain Time

      Jan 1, 2021

      In the air you don’t know who you are or where My own self feels it is in wind being born These are currents a man made one eighth of smokeless fire fears but chooses A path south from Anchorage to a Mountain House Ungovern the northern land to pass

      10 min read

    • Article

      Selkie

      Feb 3, 2022

      Selkie
      10 min read

    • Article

      Into The Wild

      Jul 22, 2019

      Into The Wild
      4 min read

    • Article

      Song Of The Woods

      May 23, 2022

      Song Of The Woods
      7 min read

    • Article

      Sea Watchers

      Sep 24, 2020

      Sea Watchers
      5 min read

    • Article

      In The Ruins Of Paradise

      Dec 17, 2018

      In The Ruins Of Paradise
      18 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems by Joseph Brodsky

      May 12, 2020

      Two Poems by Joseph Brodsky
      7 min read

    • Article

      Places of Peace

      Jul 21, 2020

      Places of Peace
      2 min read

    • Article

      The Denial Of Death

      Sep 15, 2018

      I had left my passport at an inn we stayed at for a night or so whose name I couldn’t remember. This is how it began. The next hotel would not receive me. A beautiful hotel, in an orange grove, with a view of the sea. How casually you accepted the ro

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Best Rain in Literature

      Apr 14, 2020

      The Best Rain in Literature
      11 min read

    • Article

      The Sound Of Bongo

      Oct 2, 2019

      The Sound Of Bongo
      4 min read

    • Article

      Loving Lock 30

      Jun 17, 2020

      Loving Lock 30
      3 min read

    • Article

      Death’s Footsteps

      Nov 29, 2017

      Death’s Footsteps
      5 min read

    • Article

      The White Fox

      Oct 13, 2017

      The White Fox
      10 min read

    • Article

      Long Shower

      Feb 3, 2022

      Long Shower
      3 min read

    • Article

      Queen Of Salt

      Feb 6, 2020

      Queen Of Salt
      10 min read

    • Article

      New Nature Writer Of The Year 2021 Runner-up

      Sep 23, 2021

      Former local government worker Mike is a keen walker and wildlife enthusiast, based in North Yorkshire. Prize judge Stephen Moss praised his entry as: “A delightful recollection of a long-ago boyhood, written with imagination and a real sense of the

      3 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Jan 1, 2020

      How slow is all of this dying? Across the county linea fossil in the making, off-road exhaling last lightin nightmud. A small cat in a steel trap. Pendulous sparrows preen. Holding on for the last bluedark nightwe ate fruited scabs off each other’s m

      4 min read

    • Article

      Sometimes The Gods Can Be Cruel

      Oct 27, 2023

      Sometimes The Gods Can Be Cruel
      7 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems

      May 1, 2020

      Your body becomes dangerousin water, after you watch Memoirs of a Geisha & learn aboutthe eel & the cave, knowing it’s a metaphor for sex but alsotaking it literally, imagining what animal mightswim up into you as you wade, nakedin the lake under a c

      1 min read

    • Article

      Dry Spell

      Mar 31, 2022

      Dry Spell
      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The City of Woven Streets

    3.5/5

    59 ratings6 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      It is a deep story which allows reader to think. There is a poetic quality on the writing and I like the complex way it describes what people are capable of creating. I think it is also a way to hope for humanity, to find more compassion for living creatures including the whole planet. All the time the red yarn is to make us think, to make us question our choices and our response to the commands of authorities - is it really good to follow rules if they are corrupt, misery... And what would be alternative.. We need this kind of wake up calls. Absolutely
    • 3/5
      In a society where dreams are forbidden Eliana experiences night-maeres, which she must keep hidden or suffer banishment. She lives in an island city, in the House of Webs, whose head is called the Weaver. All born on the island bear tattoos showing their citizenship with a mark added yearly to show age. The city is prone to flooding by the sea and there is an overhead transport system of gondolas travelling on suspended ropes, and rope bridges between buildings. One day a girl whose tongue has been cut out is brought in to the House. In a certain kind of light Eliana’s name can be seen to be tattooed on her hand. The mystery builds from that point as Eliana comes into contact with a resistance movement, is betrayed by the Weaver and banished to a punishment detachment diving for valuable red coral. The normal text is interspersed at long intervals with passages rendered in italics and which, apart from starting and finishing partway on a page, have no punctuation to separate them from the rest. The setting has similarities to Itäranta’s first novel Memory of Water in that there is an oppressive regime from whom secrets must be kept. The City of Woven Streets leans more towards fantasy than, and does not have the clarity nor focus of, that previous book. Eliana’s escape from servitude is fortuitous and the final confrontation seems a bit rushed. This may be due to the pressure of the deadline to which Itäranta refers in her Acknowledgements.
    • 4/5
      Delightfully creative writing by Itäranta, put me in mind of some of China Miéville's works.
    • 5/5
      Absolutely stunning, gorgeously written, with a story that starts out as a familiar dystopia but morphs into something surprising and clever. Highly recommended
    • 2/5
      Reading is such a powerful tool to have. The concept of this story really got me excited. I picked it up ready to settle in for a good read. The beginning did start out good. Yet, it quickly became apparent to me that my joy was disappearing fast. The story moved slowly without a lot of details about the world that Eliana existed in or why her talents were so precious. In fact, after reading about a third of the way I put the book down for good. Yet, despite my lack of joy, I decided to come back to this book and give it a second chance. Only, this time I picked up the book and opened it to a random spot a little past the middle of the story and began to start reading. What I read then had me intrigued. Details about the world were more apparent. However, I still could not capture that emotional connection towards Eliana or anyone else in the story. I can see where the author was going with this book and I applaud the author but I needed that character connection, more details, and intensity earlier on. Sadly, this book was not for me (this time).
    • 3/5
      I feel sorry for this book. It has some interesting ideas, and a lot of the writing is very good. I was frustrated with the author, or maybe her editor, for not paring some of the detail back. It felt at times as though she had left all her back story notes in the book, all the things she needed to write about the society she was creating in order to know how her characters would move around it in relation to each other but that I as a reader didn't need to get bogged down in. It could have been punchier.The story is set on an unnamed island, similar to Venice in a way, but not based on Venice. The island is divided into sectors based on the equivalent of craft guilds. There are weavers in the House of Webs, writers in the House of Words and ink makers in the House of Inks. Then there is the House of the Tainted, where this society's untouchables are sent. Merchants come and go, but the inhabitants of the island rarely leave and new residents rarely arrive from outside. That is until a strange girl is found assaulted in the street. She bears a mysterious tattoo in invisible ink that connects her to one of the weavers.The story reminded me of The Name of the Rose but with an added dose of climate change dystopia. There was a controlling Council who named dreaming as a heresy and sent out City Guards to purge society of Dreamers and there was an underground resistance. In the middle is the protagonist trying to get to the truth. The only draw back was the author forgetting to remove her book plan from the story. Too much detail drowned out the narrative.