Patrick Wilmot 
Seeing Double 

All is not well in the state of Niagra, the America of the African continent. The General — the Unique Miracle of the Century — has banned all but country and western music; a giant statue of Elvis desecrates the sacred Amuz Rock, street children are terrorised by the General’s Disposal Units and someone is conducting experiments on unwitting Evangelical Christians. In Xanadu, Bob Marley, the sign painter, draws portraits that are more real than the real, more human than human and longs for the mother stolen from him by Idi Amin Ogwu. And in the oil-rich province of Lidiziam, villagers who refuse the attentions of the Burton Holly corporation, and its promises of US dollars in exchange for their oil, are massacred. The nation rejoices when idealistic young army officers stage a bloodless coup, but the revolution and dreams of utopian democracy are short-lived. A US-led ‘coalition of the willing’ sponsors a counter-coup and reinstates the General. The young idealists are rounded up, tortured and murdered. Forced to flee to the secret caves of Lidiziam, the girlfriends, wives and sisters of the revolutionaries gather together a guerrilla army of women and children and prepare to wage a very unorthodox war against the General and his powerful allies. Seeing Double is a provocative contemporary tale of dictatorship, kleptocracy, globalization and greed. It is a story of idealism, love, ganja, Sade, country & western music, Elvis, the art of sign painting, the war against terror and the politics of haute couture. With caustic humour and keen observation, Patrick Wilmot has written a satire that is as unforgiving in its analysis of world events as it is entertaining.