Flavia Bruntti wanted to write about three historic cities that are kept by a web of time, and hence came up with "The Web of Time."
What was your inspiration behind your most recent book?
The inspiration for "The Web of Time" came a few years ago during a flight from Tunis to Rome, looking out the plane window and wondering what the gods of yesterday would make of today’s world. A few weeks later, looking out another window, but of a car in Tripoli, Libya this time, we passed an expanse of standing doors, from buildings half-pulled down or half-built up. Just doors, standing guard, a piece of what they had been or had been meant to be. They looked just like portals. Where could they lead?
A little while later, I started to write a story about three historic cities grappling with the modern, the gods that lived between and in those places, and of course, the portals that connected them. Underneath it all, there was a web, keeping time. Until it couldn’t anymore, and the most unlikely duo of humans would have to team up and fix things themselves because these gods, they’re not always so helpful.
What does Reading Rainbow mean to you?
For me, this question and the next one intertwine: one of the best parts of reading is that it allows you to be a part of a million-billion stories and places and adventures and truths. Part of the fun is that those million-billion stories are both inside and outside of our defined comfort zones, of what we’re “used to.” One of the gifts of reading is exploration, and exploration in its truest form goes hand-in-hand with respect. That means having the opportunity to read about a variety of people and experiences, walking their path with them for a moment, holding dear to our own hearts what they hold dear to theirs. I think, most of the time, we find there are so many similarities in all our paths and what we hold close.
Why do you feel representation of a variety of people is so important when it comes to writing books?
What would the point be of reading books where everyone is the same, unless it’s some kind of cyborg horror novel? We live in a beautiful, scary, diverse world. Everybody deserves to see themselves. It took me a long time, way into my adulthood, to realize that many of my preconceptions were based on what I was taught was normal and accepted by the world around me when I was growing up. I consider myself an open-minded human, but it’s hard to even realize that certain beliefs we have, both about ourselves and others, are because that’s just what we’ve consumed. It’s a privilege and a responsibility to read widely.
"The Web of Time" opens with a note on arterial languages—the languages our hearts speak in—because although the book is in English, because the characters are from all different places and times, it’s important to know that they have individual languages they cling to; their arterial languages. It ends with, “this writer trusts the reader’s heart will translate to the language that most speaks to their bones, and hopes it will feel like home.” In this case, it’s language, a great connector, but it’s a message that I hope expands outward: we all have a right to our languages, our own reality, our own lived experiences and cultures. It’s beautiful to see ourselves reflected in what we read and consume, and a responsibility to respect other reflections.
Tell us a little more about the book and why you decided to write it.
WOT is about connection, about the power of shared stories and places in shaping worlds and recognizing each other. At its core is found family, and the surprising ways life can send your people in your direction. I don’t want to give too much away, but The Web isn’t only the physical web that weaves together time—it’s in the character’s relationships and how they lose, and find, each other and themselves, sometimes through generations and time. And in all of this, the places are also main characters. I wanted to write about Rome, Tunis, and Tripoli, three places that have colored my life and my heart in different facets of my life, and that have enthralled me with how they handle being both harbingers of the past and modern-day cities.
I was often a bit of an outsider growing up, because I kept moving, and eventually I picked a career that kept me moving to new countries and often living in liminal spaces. Maybe because of this, I’m drawn to things like maps and compasses—the things that guide us home. We’ve been making maps for thousands of years, drawing all sorts of things on them. Medieval cartographers would sometimes draw monsters or animals in unexplored, and therefore potentially dangerous, areas. There’s a legend that the phrase hic sunt dracones, or there be dragons, was a common inscription, although history tells us the phrase much more commonly used on old maps was hic sunt leones, or here be lions. But as soon as I heard hic sunt dracones, that was the only phrase I would imagine, and still do.
I wrote WOT as an intersection between places, the surprise in discovering how new places and the people who love them can call us like a beacon; can begin to feel like home. And if there are dragons? Maybe they’ll be friendly.
What can fans expect from your book?
An adventure. A story of belonging, of not belonging. An ode to historic cities like Rome, Tunis, and Tripoli, that don’t know which era they belong in. An exploration of gods, but not your normal gods (one of my favorite gods of the story is Tevere, named after the Italian word for Tiber, the River of Rome). The story’s characters are both human and divine, and both are flawed. A story that plays out in different times, explores different kinds of love and connection, and celebrates how our voices shape our worlds, bridge divides, and inspire change.
What's up next for you in the bookish world?
I’m hard at work on the sequel to "The Web of Time." The book can stand alone, because as a reader I tend to love series that intertwine but also wrap up their individual storylines, but the world we’re meeting in this first book isn’t done with me yet, and I hope the readers will feel the same!
