His whole life, Walid Waked had been told that his great grandfather invented the Arabic typewriter. And then, one day, he learned that another family - the Haddads - believed they invented it. This week on Kerning Cultures: the contested history of the Arabic typewriter.

Thank you to everybody we spoke to for this story: Ahmed Ellaithy - for everything, and taking us down the rabbit hole with you - Walid Waked, Anis Waked,  Alexandre Cordahi, Nagla Badran, Pascal Zoghbi and Titus Nemeth.

This episode was produced by Ahmed Ellaithy, Hebah Fisher, Nadeen Shaker, and Alex Atack, with editorial support from Dana Ballout, Tamara Rasamny, and Zeina Dowidar. Sound design by Mohamed Khreizat. Fact-checking by Zeina Dowidar. Kerning Cultures is a Kerning Cultures Network production.

Support this podcast on patreon.com/kerningcultures for as little as $1 a month.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.