How exactly do large N QFTs reassemble themselves into perturbative string theories? This talk will focus on an example which explicitly illustrates a general program of how this can happen around a free field fixed point. Specifically, we consider n-point correlators in the symmetric product orbifold theory, dual to tensionless strings on AdS_3, in a Gross-Mende like limit of large conformal dimensions. These correlators are given in terms of branched covering maps which we can exactly solve for in this limit, via a map to a matrix model with a logarithmic potential. The spectral curve encoding the matrix model solution then naturally gives rise to an integral over the dual string moduli space through a special (Strebel) parameterization of the latter. This is a precise realisation of what was proposed as the underlying mechanism for gauge-string duality in weakly coupled QFTS. Finally, the integrand on the moduli space can be cast in a number of striking forms including an action given by (the modulus of) the Schwarzian of the covering map
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