Writing in the Wound

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 Prof. Regula Burckhardt Qureshi, whose faith in her awakened the courage to risk everything for the artist’s path.

Spanning nearly two decades – from 2006 to the present – across the academic corridors of Harvard and the University of Alberta to the soundscapes of London, Boston, Chicago, Edmonton, Mumbai, Karachi, Calgary, Banff, and Toronto, and a world odyssey aboard a floating campus, Writing in the Wound is a story of resilience and fragile belonging, of visibility and erasure, and of the power of art – in particular Sufi music – to transmute pain into wisdom.

It is an intimate testament to truth and vulnerability in the face of institutional silencing, immigration precarity, and the long endurance toward permanent belonging.

“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

Author Biography

Shumaila Hemani, Ph.D., is an award-winning ethnomusicologist, composer, and artist-scholar whose work bridges music, migration, and mental health. A former Music Faculty with Semester at Sea and the Faculty of Extension at the University of Alberta, she is the inaugural recipient of the Women in Music Canada Honour Roll and winner of the Cultural Diversity Award. Her essays and commentary have appeared in The Conversation, Canada’s National Observer, and National Post, and she has shared her insights on platforms such as OC87 Recovery Diaries and the Mental Health Today podcast.

Through performances at Canadian citizenship ceremonies and international festivals, Hemani brings Sufi music into spaces of healing and remembrance. She is the founder of The Deep Listening Path and host of Apple’s Top 40 podcast Listening to the Wound. Writing in the Wound is her debut memoir.