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.

This episode originally aired in September 2019.

Thank you to everybody we spoke to for this story: Ahmed Ellaithy – for 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 Mohamad Khreizat. Fact-checking by Zeina Dowidar. Kerning Cultures is a Kerning Cultures Network production.

This episode is brought to you by GoSell by Tap Payments: https://www.tap.company/sa/ar/sell

Kerning Cultures is a Kerning Cultures Network production. Support this podcast on Patreon for as little as $1 a month.