kitabic

Kitabic is a neologism used in discussions of literature and book culture to describe qualities and discourses that revolve around books, textuality, and bibliographic materiality. The term derives from the Arabic word kitab meaning "book" and the English suffix -ic, and is used to characterize forms of writing and analysis that treat the book as both object and idea.

In literary studies and theory, kitabic may refer to texts that foreground edition, annotation, marginalia, colophons, and the material conditions of reading. It encompasses concerns with manuscript culture, the codex, typographic design, and the circulation of copies, as well as phenomena such as bibliographic citation networks and edition politics. The kitabic mode often analyzes how books shape and are shaped by reading practices, libraries, and publishing infrastructures.

In fiction, kitabic works might deploy metafiction about libraries, catalogues, shelves, or the act of annotation as plot mechanism. Such works frequently reflect on the life of texts, the authority of editors and printers, or the tactile experience of handling pages and margins.

Despite its utility, kitabic is not a widely standardized term; some scholars view it as overlapping with concepts like bibliophilia, codicology, and textuality, and caution against overusing it. It is most often employed as a descriptive lens in studies of material culture surrounding books or in analyses of narrative strategies that foreground the book as object and symbol. See also bibliophilia, codicology, textual criticism, and book history.