Salma Hussain grew up in the U.A.E. and immigrated to Canada at the age of thirteen. She earned an honours BA in English from the University of Calgary where she also completed a law degree. Subsequently she earned a Master of Law degree from McGill University. Hussain now lives in Toronto. She is a graduate of the Humber Summer Writing Workshop.
Fiction (Juvenile)
It’s Not Over Yet
Toronto: Tundra Books, 2026.
Forthcoming Oct. 2026
Publisher’s Synopsis (From its website)
Fifteen-year-old Wali Khan, affectionately called “Vali the Vomiter” by his older twin sisters, has always chalked up his throwing up to a delicate stomach. And the headaches in ninth grade? Worrying about grades. But waking up in the hospital in the second week of tenth grade, he is shocked to hear the cause: acoustic neuroma, a golf-ball-sized tumor pressing on his ear canal.
The good news: it’s most likely benign. The bad news: surgery in four months, with probable hearing loss as a result.
Starting a new year in high school with a looming life-altering surgery date forces Wali, a passionate film buff, to look inward, at his family, friends and even himself. Why is this happening to him?
His Muslim father and Christian mother are supportive, yet sometimes a bit clueless when it comes to their children. His twin sisters are a mix of loving and teasing, and he bounces between spying on them and keeping their secrets. As for the new girl, Ruby Lai-Mirza, he’s just not sure he has time for a new friend.
Wali may fear the end, but he’s still got a lot of living to do. It’s not over yet.
Fiction (Juvenile)
The Secret Diary of Mona Hasan
Toronto: Tundra Books, 2022.
Publisher’s Synopsis (From its website)
Mona Hasan is a young Muslim girl growing up in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, when the first Gulf War breaks out in 1991. The war isn’t what she expects — “We didn’t even get any days off school! Just my luck” — especially when the ground offensive is over so quickly and her family peels the masking tape off their windows. Her parents, however, fear there is no peace in the region, and it sparks a major change in their lives.
Over the course of one year, Mona falls in love, speaks up to protect her younger sister, loses her best friend to the new girl at school, has summer adventures with her cousins in Pakistan, immigrates to Canada, and pursues her ambition to be a feminist and a poet.
Awards and Honours
2023 Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction for Young People (Finalist)
Poetry (Chapbook)
What If Maybe and Other Poems
London, ON: Baseline Press, 2025.
75 numbered copies
Links
Salma Hussain twitter site
Publisher Tundra Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House Canada Young Readers
Publisher Baseline Press