Chimera著者John Barth

Chimera (1973) is a National Book Award for Fiction winning novel by John Barth.

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From John Barth Information Center
This is another of Barth’s best novels. Chimera, like the mythical creature it’s named after, consists of three interconnected novellas — one about Scheherazade from A Thousand and One Nights fame (yet another Barth obsession), one about the Greek hero Perseus, and one about the lesser-known Greek hero Bellerophon.

Those interested in Barth’s observations on the state of story-telling today need look no further than Chimera. The first segment, “Dunyazadiad,” boldly confronts the fear that we have run out of stories to tell, and brilliantly answers it by stating that the storytelling itself is the key.

Barth shared the National Book Award for Chimera in 1973 with John Williams for his Augustus, a fictional memoir of Roman emperor Augustus Caesar. (Barth had been nominated in 1956 for his Floating Opera, but lost.)

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Product Description
In CHIMERAJohn Barth injects his signature wit into the tales of Scheherezade of the Thousand and One Nights, Perseus, the slayer of Medusa, and Bellerophon, who tamed the winged horse Pegasus. In a book that the Washington Post called “stylishly maned, tragically songful, and serpentinely elegant,” Barth retells these tales from varying perspectives, examining the myths’ relationship to reality and their resonance with the contemporary world. A winner of the National Book Award, this feisty, witty, sometimes bawdy book provoked Playboy to comment, “There’s every chance in the world that John Barth is a genius.”