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Describing Totalitarianism in a Society of Bees

In her newly published novel, The Bees, Laline Paull describes her sterile worker-bee protagonist, as devout, hard-working and loyal, who will gladly give her life for her Queen and colony - until sudden fertility sets her on a criminal path to mother-love. This is a book about bees, but also human society, free-will, and a totalitarian political system, as Ms Paull explains.

(Photo: a queen bee in her hive in Luxembourg Gardens in Paris. Credit: ERIC FEFERBERG/AFP/Getty Images)

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4 minutes