Bob Dylan Wins the 2016 Nobel Prize In Literature

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(Newswire.net — October 15, 2016) — Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature this year for work that the Swedish Academy described as “having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.”

The permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, Sara Danius, made the announcement in Stockholm on Thursday. This is the second year in a row that the academy has turned away from fiction writers for the literature prize but it is a groundbreaking choice by the Nobel committee to select the first literature laureate whose career has primarily been as a musician.

Bob Dylan arguably made the lyrics more important than the music.

Dylan will receive an 18-karat gold medal and a check for about $925,000.

Dylan had fierce competition. Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o was the favorite for the award. Japanese author Haruki Murakami was also in the running.

Bob Dylan is 259th US citizen to win the Nobel Prize.

The 75 year old musician was born as Robert Allen Zimmerman in 1941, as the son of a Minnesota appliance-store owner. Dylan began as a folk singer but soon established himself as one of the voices of political protest and cultural reshaping in the 1960’s. His musical career spans back as far as 1959, when he began playing in bars in Minnesota.

He is the creator of many hits, such as “Blowin ‘in the Wind”, “The Times They are A-Changin”, which symbolically have become anti-war anthems of protest and the civil pacifist movement.

The 2016 Nobel Prize has already been awarded for physics, chemistry, economics, and medicine. The winner of the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize is Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos.

The Nobel Prize, a prestigious award, was named after the great inventor Alfred Nobel, and has been awarded since 1901 in the fields of science, literature and for special efforts for peace.