Bob Dylan has won the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature.
The ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ hitmaker was announced today (13.10.16) as the first ever singer/songwriter ever to receive the prestigious award and he has been chosen "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition", according to Sara Danius, permanent Secretary of the Nobel Foundation.
Dylan – who changed his real name from Robert Zimmerman to his stage name because he was inspired by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas – is also the first American to win the accolade since novelist Toni Morrison in 1993.
Danius has described the folk rock legend as a master of reinvention and a worthy recipient among his Nobel Prize peers because like their work has, his songs will undoubtedly stand the test of time.
She said he is: "A great poet in the English speaking tradition. A great sampler … and for 54 years he has been at it, reinventing himself. If you look far back, 5000 years, you discover Homer and Sappho. They wrote poetic texts which were meant to be performed, and it’s the same way for Bob Dylan. We still read Homer and Sappho, and we enjoy it."
The 75-year-old star’s protest songs such as ‘The Times They are A-Changin’ became anthems for the anti-Vietnam War movement during the 1960s and his constant hunger for reinvention – which began with his initially unpopular decision to plug in and go electric in the mid-60s – has kept him at the forefront of music.
BANG Showbiz managing director Rick Sky, a Dylan expert, said about the accolade: "It’s fantastic that the Nobel Prize team is not a fuddy duddy organisation, but hip to the zeitgeist. Dylan, is the greatest singer/songwriter from the last 50 years. His songs are pure poems, this is so well deserved."
Bob Dylan wins Nobel Prize for Literature 2016
