About
The Press
Matn Press publishes neglected Arabic works in new editions, and the books of Tarek Gara.
The name
In the old Arabic book a page was built in layers. The matn1 sat in the middle: the text itself, the part that was read first, learned by heart and copied before anything else. Round it ran the sharh,2 a commentary that went through the matn phrase by phrase, and round that the hawashi,3 notes on the commentary written into the margins in a smaller hand, sometimes at an angle, sometimes in another ink.
Printed books kept the arrangement for a while. Many books printed in Cairo in the late nineteenth century carry a second work in the margin of the first, inside a ruled frame, and say so on the title page.4
What it publishes
Matn Press publishes Arabic works that have fallen out of reach: books that were read in their day and have no readable text online now. They appear in a numbered series called Hawamish.5 Each one is transcribed from an early printing, edited by rules that the book states in its introduction, and given notes in the margin. The first is Ya’qub Sarruf’s novel Fatat Misr, printed in Cairo in 1905.
The press also publishes the novels and poems of Tarek Gara, which are written in English. They carry the Matn imprint and stand outside the numbered series.
How the books are made
Every Matn book is set in one house style. Its notes stand in the margin beside their line, as they do on this page, and its Arabic is justified by stretching letters at their joins. A book in both languages opens from both covers. The books carry one mark, the seal, which is the word matn drawn four times round a page.
Who makes them
The press is run by Tarek Gara, a novelist and book designer. Its books are designed and typeset by Fluent, his studio, which also takes work from other authors and publishers.