E.O. Wilson, an 80-year-old Harvard biologist, has just published his first novel, called "Anthill." One section of the work tells, in great detail, of the triumphs, the conflicts, and the downfalls of four separate ant colonies in Alabama. The other parts of the book are more autobiographical, and tell the story of a man who gives up a successful career in law to protect the particular plot of land where he learned, as a boy, to love nature -- the plot of land on which the four ant colonies are based.

Here's an excerpt from "Anthill," recently published in The New Yorker.

And here's the Globe and Mail review.

And here's a review by Margaret Atwood, in the New York Review of Books, in which she compares the ant-focused portions of Wilson's novel to The Iliad.