James Sanua’s journal Abou Naddara Zarqa, published in Paris from 1878 onwards was the Arab world’s first satirical journal and one of its most popular. Produced through a process of lithography which was similar to 19th century photocopying, each page was handwritten and then fed through a machine which produced the journal. This talk uses issues of the journal from 1878 to 1882, as well as samples of handwriting from Sanua’s archive to investigate how Abou Naddara was put together and who actually wrote the text. In doing so, the talk tries to draw broader conclusion about the economy and material conditions of émigré Arabic journals in the late 19th century and the Egyptian community in Paris in the 1880s.