Chimera (Barth novel) Chimera (Barth novel) Chimera is a 1972 fantasy novel written by American writer John Barth, composed of three loosely connected novellas. The novellas are "Dunyazadiad", "Perseid" and "Bellerophoniad", whose titles refer eponymously to the mythical characters Dunyazad, Perseus and Bellerophon (slayer of the mythical Chimera). The book is an example of postmodernism, which can be seen in its metafictional content and its incorporation of stylistic elements that go beyond the traditional novel genre. It shared the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction with "Augustus" by John Edward Williams. The Dunyazadiad is a retelling of the framing story of Scheherazade, the
Chimera (genetics) parents, different cultivars or different species (which may belong to different genera). The tissues may be partially fused together following grafting to form a single growing organism that preserves both types of tissue in a single shoot. Just as the constituent species are likely to differ in a wide range of features, so the behavior of their periclinal chimeras is like to be highly variable. The first such known chimera was probably the Bizzaria, which is a fusion of the Florentine citron and the sour orange. Well-known examples of a graft-chimera are "Laburnocytisus" 'Adamii', caused by a fusion of a