UNKNOWN

Alberta's 2025 Favourite Reads

What happens when your scars begin to speak?

For Dr. Shumaila Hemani, music began as a calling. It unfolded into a life path through a rare human connection with eminent ethnomusicologist Professor Regula Burckhardt Qureshi, whose faith in her awakened the courage to risk everything for the artist’s path.

Drawing upon intuitive deep listening to the soundscapes of diverse musical cultures and the author’s own trauma, Writing in the Wound tells the story of an ethnomusicologist’s resilience and fragility amid systemic erasure.

Spanning travels across diverse musical cultures and settings, Dr. Hemani shares her testament to truth and vulnerability in the face of institutional silencing, immigration precarity, and the long endurance toward belonging in Canada.

"Shumaila Hemani 's work is multifaceted, beautifully lyrical, and crystal clear."
— Barb Howard, author of Happy Sands, University of Calgary Press.

“Writing in the Wound contributes to collective human strength to heal the planet— in such a loving, powerful way.”

— Norine Braun, award-winning Indigenous singer-songwriter

Dr. Shumaila Hemani is an award-winning author and musician based in Calgary, Canada. Winner of Literary Titan's Silver Book Award and described as "arresting, thought-provoking, and fiercely alive," Writing in the Wound has ranked among Amazon Canada's Top 100 travel memoirs in 2026. It has been featured in Alberta's favourite reads (2025). A former music faculty member at Semester at Sea and the University of Alberta, she bridges music, migration, and social justice in her work. A Women in Music Canada Honour Roll recipient (2023) and Cultural Diversity Award recipient (2017), her nonfiction has been published by the IHRAM Press, The Goose, Recovery Diaries, WestWord, and elsewhere, while her scholarly work is forthcoming with Traditions of Music and Dance (Cambridge University Press) and Routledge's Human Rights series. She has taught nonfiction through the Alexandra Writers' Centre Society and shared her work through podcasts, including Reading Hannah Arendt at Bard College, CBC's What on Earth, The Artsy Raven, U Multicultural, and <i>Recovery Diaries.  Hemani is a proud member of PEN Canada's Writer in Exile, the Canadian Authors Association, the Writers' Guild of Alberta, and the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers (CAPS).