The Letterpress of San Telmo
The sound hits you before anything else. A rhythmic thump-and-hiss, like a mechanical heartbeat, echoing through a building that smells of ink and old paper. In San Telmo, Buenos Aires' oldest barrio, the Fernandez family letterpress has been making this sound since 1947.
"My grandfather bought the Heidelberg press from a German immigrant who was returning to Europe after the war," says Lucia Fernandez, the current keeper of the press. "It still runs perfectly. We oil it every day like a beloved animal."
Lead Type in a Digital World
In an age of digital printing and e-books, a letterpress seems almost defiantly anachronistic. Each letter must be selected individually from wooden cases that line the workshop walls, arranged by hand in a composing stick, locked into a metal chase, inked, and pressed onto paper one sheet at a time.
It is, by any modern measure, absurdly inefficient. A laser printer can produce in seconds what the Heidelberg takes hours to accomplish. But efficiency was never the point.
"Hold a letterpress page up to the light," Lucia says, running her finger across a freshly printed sheet. "See how the letters are pressed into the paper? You can feel them. A laser printer puts ink on the surface. A letterpress pushes the words into the page. The difference is like the difference between a handshake and a hug."
Fifty Copies, No More
The poetry collections we carry through Heritage Souk are limited to runs of fifty copies each. This isn't a marketing gimmick. It's a physical limitation: after fifty impressions, the lead type begins to show wear that affects print quality. Each copy is then hand-bound with Argentine leather, numbered, and signed by both the author and the printer.
A book should be an object you want to hold. In a world of screens, the physical act of reading from paper you can feel is an act of resistance.
Lucia's latest project is a collection of contemporary Argentine poetry, featuring work from twelve emerging writers. She selected each poem personally, designed the layout, chose the paper stock, and supervised every step of the printing process. The result is not just a book but an artifact.
When you hold one of these editions, you are holding something that connects you to a tradition stretching back to Gutenberg, filtered through the particular sensibility of a Buenos Aires family that has chosen to keep that tradition alive against all economic logic. There are faster ways to publish. There are cheaper ways. But there is no more beautiful way.
