Questions and answers between Cheef Chebe & Uncle Sam
It is not easy to write and publish one book. But it must be much harder to produce and present three books to the world at the same time. My Name is Uncle Sam, it is my privilege to chat with Cheef Chebe about his three amazing books on Cheef Chebe’s (CCB). I would be asking Cheef Chebe a few questions about the content, the message, and the inspiration behind his new books. I would be asking Cheef What? Why? Who? How? When?
Uncle Sam
Cheef Chebe, how are you doing today?
Cheef Chebe
I feel good and great every day when I wake up. It’s always an honour to feel the fresh breath of life. I love the taste and joy of life irrespective of some of the pointless pain and needless complications.
Uncle Sam’s Questions to Cheef Chebe about the content of his three new books
Chief Chebe, why have you published three books at the same time? Are these books related or are they completely different from each other? What is the message you want to pass on to the world in your three books?
Cheef Chebe
The three new books I published on Saturday 21st of September 2024, namely, Ancestors, Aliens, and Soul School Students, are related to each other in the four dimensions of being:
- Body
- Mind
- Spirit
- Soul
And yes indeed. The three books are closely related to my thoughts and experience of the human condition, African and world spirituality, competing civilisations, cultures, African traditional beliefs, and the impact of religion, misinformation, and politics on the lives of African People in particular, and human beings in general.
Ancestors and Soul School Students are indeed, like identical twins in both content and character but different in appearance from time to time. Both Ancestors and Soul School Students tell the untold stories of a peaceful, dynamic, and prosperous African Civilisations of the past and how we can learn from the soul-school wisdom of our Ancestors today and reprogram, replan, redesign, redevelop, rebuild and transform Africa from its current status of semi-civilise-chaos into a better sustainable living paradise for the people of Africa and the wider world through the positive philosophy of a Fairer Alternative World (FAW, otherwise known as FAW Civilization of the future.
It is important to note that neither Ancestors nor the Soul School Student is an autobiography. The work presented in these new books is the work of innovative wisdom and creative development exploration and the search for sustainable answers to some of the most complex challenges facing the world and everyone in it from an African and a positive global citizen’s perspective.
My main objective in this work is the exploration of the role fictional reality plays in past, present and future civilisations of the world. The question is how much of the reality we experience today is a by-product of fictional logic of the past? How much of the fiction we are creating today is destined to shape or become the living reality of the future?
Aliens, on the other hand, it is probably the best imagination of fictional reality at play, compared to Ancestors and Soul School Students. In Aliens, Africa’s most famous fictional reality character, Anansi, the spider, can help us imagine a better world in which animals and human beings can live almost perfectly in peace and harmony.
In Aliens, the tragedy facing the world is an Alien Sky Rock which the animals of the jungle have foreseen is being thrown onto the earth. In this book, all living beings in the natural world are desperately trying to catch the attention of the human world and let us know about this potential doomsday rock heading onto Earth.
In the meantime, Anansi, the igneous spider comes out with a brilliant idea to build a giant invisible interconnected web to save the world. A giant invisible and super strong net that can be stretched to cover the sky to block the Alien Rock from falling on earth and killing everyone in it in one go!
In essence, Aliens enable us to look at a world in crisis and beyond crisis. Aliens enable us to feel, better understand, and appreciate how our fellow beings of nature feel about what we do to them and what we do with each other as complex, interrelated, and interdependent creatures of nature.
Uncle Sam’s Questions to Cheef Chebe about the Inspiration Behind his Aliens, Ancestors and Soul School Students…
Cheef Chebe, why did you choose to write and publish these three books in one go (Aliens, Ancestors, and Soul School Students? What is the inspiration and motivation behind your work as an African/Ghanaian Author in Scotland? What are your aims and objectives as an African Writer and what do you want to achieve through your work of creative art?
Cheef Chebe’s Answers to Uncle Sam about the inspiration behind his three new books.
Thank you so much for these valid questions. What is the inspiration behind my work? This is a very good question indeed and I can’t answer your questions properly without a story. So, here we go…
Once upon a time, probably over two decades ago, I was invited to a summer school program at Peterhead Academy in the far north of Scotland. This was an annual program organised in partnership between Peterhead Academy and Shell UK, the giant oil conglomerate. The program was about social entrepreneurship, building business confidence in young people and preparing them for the bigger world outside of the classroom.
As part of my contribution to this annual program as creative entrepreneur, storyteller, motivational speaker and drummer, my role was a motivator, and I told inspiring stories to the young people and always followed with some African Drumming and dancing.
I remember that after one of my workshops at Peterhead academy a group of young students followed me from the classroom to the dinner hall and they were all inquisitive to know more about me and my own story. I remember all the children asking me where else they could get to read more of my stories. One of the girls specifically asked if I had written books. Chief Chebe, are your books available on Amazon? Asked, one of the students. No, I said. And, why not? She asked.
These questions stuck in me, and I remember after leaving Peterhead, I couldn’t get rid of the last question one of the students asked me in Peterhead…. Why not?
That question, why not, was my inspiration to start writing. I come from an oral tradition where knowledge is often past down from generation to generation through the word of mouth and through music and art but not in books. But, for the first time, I realised that being a storyteller is different from being an author although the two can be come one. I realised that as an author, you can easily share your work with people who are far away from you through the books you have written whilst being a storyteller is limited to a reasonable degree to a physical or live audience.
Anyway, from that day at Peterhead Academy until today, I do my bit to write some of the stories I was told and fondly cherished and loved as a child growing up in Pulima, rural Ghana. I have since then wrote dozens of books some of which are published under different author names, but this is my first time of approaching the whole process of publishing my books seriously on amazon.
I write stories that I love writing. I tell stories which have made an impact in my life. I like talking about issues that affects humanity and especially issues that affects Africa and the people of Africa. I write to satisfy my soul. I write to make a difference. I love writing stories that makes me able to transform pain into joy and the feeling of despair into hope!
I have no wild expectations as a writer and a human being. I am to tell the stories I write about as best as I can knowing that nothing in this life is perfect
The first book I published professionally after that conversation at Peterhead Academy was African Dream which I wrote over four years and published in 2012. The rest is a long story.
Uncle Sam, thank you and everyone one for your support which I endlessly appreciate and cherish. Please feel free to comment or give us your feedback about this blog using the comments box bellow.
For more information about Cheef Chebe, check out his social media pages below:
