With over 70 national and international honours to her name, including the Chandigarh Sahitya Akademi Award, the César Vallejo Award for Literary Excellence and the Reuel International Award for Poetry, Lily Swarn has long been a formidable presence in the literary world. The International Beat Poet Laureate (India) and a multilingual writer whose work has been translated into 21 languages, Swarn now returns with her 10th book and sixth poetry collection, A Drop of Cosmos.
An acclaimed author of titles such as Rippling Moonbeams (which won the Chandigarh Sahitya Akademi Award), The Divine Dialect of Flowers (recipient of the Panorama Golden Book Award), History on my Plate and the novel The Gypsy Trail, Swarn moves fluidly across genres, ranging from essays and novels to Urdu ghazals and free verse poetry.
In A Drop of Cosmos, she turns inward and skyward at once, reflecting on creation, humility and the fragile significance of human life. Drawing inspiration from the Guru Granth Sahib and echoing the philosophical musings of Mirza Ghalib, Swarn explores the eternal ‘why’ and ‘how’ of existence. Her free verse traverses seasons and states of being — the rebirth of spring, the ache of winter, the turbulence of autumn — blending the hermetic, surreal and postmodern into a contemplative tapestry.
{{/usCountry}}In A Drop of Cosmos, she turns inward and skyward at once, reflecting on creation, humility and the fragile significance of human life. Drawing inspiration from the Guru Granth Sahib and echoing the philosophical musings of Mirza Ghalib, Swarn explores the eternal ‘why’ and ‘how’ of existence. Her free verse traverses seasons and states of being — the rebirth of spring, the ache of winter, the turbulence of autumn — blending the hermetic, surreal and postmodern into a contemplative tapestry.
{{/usCountry}}With a foreword by Ada Rizzo, the collection is both intimate and expansive, a reminder, as Swarn writes, that we are all but ‘a drop of cosmos’, luminous in our humility and transient in time.