Bob Dylan has won the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition”, the academy announced on Thursday. “He is a great poet in the English tradition,” said Nobel Prize permanent secretary Sara Danius, while adding that the singer-songwriter was “a great sampler… and for 54 years he has been at it, reinventing himself.”
Dylan is the first American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature since author Toni Morrison in 1993. He also became the first true musician to win the literature prize since it was first awarded in 1901, said Odd Zschiedrich, administrative director of the Swedish Academy.
Best known for his early hits such as Blowin’ in the Wind and Like a Rolling Stone, Dylan was a key member of the 1960s alternative folk movement, but shocked his contemporaries by being one of the first folk musicians to “go electric” in 1965. The 75-year-old American follows writers including Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter and Alice Munro in receiving the prestigious award.
Dylan has previously won 11 Grammy Awards, as well as an Oscar for his song Things Have Changed, used in the 2000 film Wonder Boys.
Booker Prize-winning writer Salman Rushdie praised Dylan as a “great choice,” calling him “the brilliant inheritor of the bardic tradition.”