At the crossroads of music, migration, and memory, Hemani charts her journey from Pakistan to Harvard to a life of precarity in Canada, where the dream of permanent residency remains just out of reach.
Through heartbreak, silencing, and cultural betrayal, Hemani’s music and writing become acts of survival and resistance. The memoir braids lyrical prose, autoethnography, and embodied spirituality to confront structural racism, gendered exclusion, and the violent failures of Western institutions.
In the lineage of Audre Lorde and Arundhati Roy, Hemani’s work is a literary intervention: a voice for the voiceless, a call to compassionate citizenship, and a luminous offering to the displaced.
This memoir is both memoir and manifesto—a literary prayer carved from fire.
Date: Monday, July 1st, 2025
⏰ Time: 5:00 PM MST | 7:00 PM EST | 4:00 PM PST
📍 Location: Zoom (link coming soon)
🎤 Hosted by: Shumaila Hemani
🌿 What to Expect:
Preview readings from Writing in the Wound
Reflections on exile, music, and the meaning of Canada Day from the margins
A collective moment of listening, healing, and truth-telling
Optional closing music or blessing.
Writing in the Wound is a searing, luminous memoir of displacement, devotion, and the radical act of reclaiming voice.
Born in Pakistan and cast adrift in a Canadian immigration system that refused her structural belonging, Shumaila Hemani—musician, scholar, and spiritual seeker—traces her journey through elite institutions like University of Alberta, University of Chicago, and Harvard, encounters with Sufi mysticism, and the heartbreak of institutional erasure.
But this is not a story of defeat.
It is a story of a woman who turns the shards of exile into song.
Who finds kinship in the unlikeliest of places—a whisper, a phantom, a performance in Banff.
With poetic depth and political clarity, Hemani confronts the wounds of gender, race, and colonialism not as ends, but as entry points into the sacred.
This memoir is not merely read.
It is felt—in the body, in the breath, in the silences between the lines.
For those who have ever been rendered invisible, unheard, undocumented—this is your song.
Shumaila Hemani, Ph.D., is a Pakistani-born, Canada-based musician, writer, and ethnomusicologist whose work bridges Islamic mysticism, environmental justice, and healing through sound. She has served as music faculty aboard Semester at Sea (2020), taught at the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Extension (2019–21), and held artist residencies with Mount Royal University, Music to Life, the International Centre of Art for Social Change, and the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity.
Hemani is the recipient of the Cultural Diversity Award (2016), the inaugural Women in Music Canada Honor Roll (2023), and first prize at the Society for Ethnomusicology (2017). Her compositions, performances, and essays have moved audiences across Canada and internationally.
After 17 years of living, working, and contributing in Canada without permanent residency, Writing in the Wound is her first book—an extraordinary testimony to survival, artistry, and the right to structural inclusion.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Shumaila Hemani’s debut book confronts 17 years of immigration precarity with lyrical power and spiritual clarity
Cover: Writing in the Wound by Shumaila Hemani (Release date: July 1, 2025)
[Calgary, AB] —August 25th 2025: Musician, scholar, and internationally recognized performer Shumaila Hemani, Ph.D., launches her debut memoir Writing in the Wound, a searing literary account of her 17-year struggle for recognition, residency, and belonging in Canada.
At the crossroads of music, migration, and memory, Hemani charts her journey from Alberta to Harvard, from Karachi to Calgary. Writing in the Wound is a powerful story of survival, artistry, and spiritual transformation. It documents her experience of academic betrayal, gendered exclusion, displacement, and healing—while forging a new path as a composer and performer in the Canadian arts landscape.
“This memoir is extraordinary. Shumaila Hemani has turned pain into poetry, erasure into voice, and longing into literature.”
In the lineage of Audre Lorde and Arundhati Roy, Hemani’s work is a literary intervention: a voice for the voiceless, a call to compassionate citizenship, and a luminous offering to the displaced.
“This is not just a memoir—it’s a literary testimony to survival and the right to structural inclusion,” Hemani writes. “It is for the unheard, the undocumented, and the displaced.”
Combining poetic prose, ethnomusicological insight, and deeply personal storytelling, Writing in the Wound bridges Islamic mysticism, environmental justice, and embodied resistance through sound. It also includes a critical essay exploring the intersections of trauma, acculturation, and music—engaging with thinkers such as Hannah Arendt, Sara Ahmed, and Gabor Maté.
Hemani has served as music faculty aboard Semester at Sea, taught at the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Extension, and held residencies with Mount Royal University, Music to Life, the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, and others. She is the recipient of the Cultural Diversity Award (2015), the Women in Music Canada Honor Roll (2023), first prize from the Society for Ethnomusicology (2017), and the Listening During COVID Contest (2020). Her performances and essays have moved audiences across Canada and internationally.
Despite her wide-ranging contributions, Hemani has lived for nearly two decades in Canada without permanent residency. Writing in the Wound confronts this erasure and turns it into art.
“A literary masterpiece that testifies to the spiritual journey of a human being—through darkness, exile, faith, heartbreak, and healing.”
Title: Writing in the Wound: Acculturation, Trauma, and Music
Author: Shumaila Hemani, Ph.D.
Publisher: Self-published via Amazon KDP
Available: October 24th, 2025 (Paperback via Amazon)
ISBN: [Insert when available]
Shumaila Hemani
📧 shumaila@deeplisteningpath.ca
🌐 www.deeplisteningpath.ca
📱 @deeplisteningpath | @shumailahemani
