(JTA) — American singer and songwriter Bob Dylan has been awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Dylan, 75, was recognized for “having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition,” the Swedish Academy, which is responsible for choosing the Nobel laureates in literature, announced Thursday.

Born Robert Allen Zimmerman and raised Jewish in Minnesota, Dylan wrote some of the most influential and well-known songs of the 1960s. His hits include “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “Like a Rolling Stone” and “Times They Are a-Changin’.”

Dylan is the first American to receive the prize in more than 20 years; novelist Toni Morrison won in 1993. He will receive the $927,740 prize in Stockholm on Dec. 10, which is Alfred Nobel’s birthday. </s> Bob Dylan has won the Nobel Prize for Literature in a surprise decision that makes him the only singer-songwriter ever to win the award. Nathan Frandino reports. </s> American music legend Bob Dylan on Thursday won the Nobel Literature Prize, the first songwriter to win the prestigious award and an announcement that stunned prize watchers.

Dylan, 75, was honored “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition,” the Swedish Academy said.

The choice was met by gasps and a long round of applause from journalists attending the prize announcement.

The folk singer has been mentioned in Nobel speculation in past years, but was never seen as a serious contender.

The Academy’s permanent secretary Sara Danius said Dylan’s songs were “poetry for the ears.”

The Nobel award is the latest accolade for a singer who has come a long way from his humble beginnings as Robert Allen Zimmerman, born in 1941 in Duluth, Minnesota, who taught himself to play the harmonica, guitar and piano.

Last year, the prize went to Belarussian author Svetlana Alexievich, for her documentary-style narratives based on witness testimonies.

Dylan will take home the eight million kronor ($906,000 or 822,000 euros) prize sum.

The literature award caps the 2016 Nobel season, following more than a week of announcements for the prizes for medicine, physics, chemistry, economics and peace, with the latter going to Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos for his efforts to end a half-century war with the FARC rebels.

The 2016 laureates will receive their awards—a gold medal and a diploma—at a formal ceremony in Stockholm as tradition dictates on December 10, the anniversary of the death of prize creator Alfred Nobel.

A separate ceremony is held in Oslo for the peace prize laureate on the same day, as the Norwegian Nobel Committee grants that award. </s> Bob Dylan has won the Nobel Prize for Literature "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition," the Swedish Academy said on Thursday in awarding the 8 million Swedish crown ($927,740) prize.

Literature was the last of this year's Nobel prizes to be awarded. The prize is named after dynamite inventor Alfred Nobel and has been awarded since 1901 for achievements in science, literature and peace in accordance with his will. </s> STOCKHOLM — American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan won the 2016 Nobel Prize in literature on Thursday, a stunning announcement that for the first time bestowed the prestigious award on a musician.

The Swedish Academy cited Dylan for “having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.”

Reporters and others gathered for the announcement at the academy’s headquarters in Stockholm’s Old Town reacted with a loud cheer as his name was read out.

Dylan had been mentioned in the Nobel speculation for years, but few experts expected the academy to extend the prestigious award to a genre such as popular music.

The academy’s permanent secretary, Sara Danius, said that while Dylan performs his poetry in the form of songs, that’s no different from the ancient Greeks, whose works were often performed to music.

“Bob Dylan writes poetry for the ear,” she said. “But it’s perfectly fine to read his works as poetry.”

Dylan was born on May 24, 1941, in Duluth, Minn. He grew up in a Jewish middle-class family. He’s the first American winner of the Nobel literature prize since Toni Morrison in 1992.

By his early 20s, he had taken the folk music world by storm. “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “The Times They Are A-Changin” became anthems for the anti-war and civil rights movements of the 1960s. Dylan was also awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 2008 for his contributions to music and American culture.

The literature award was the last of this year’s Nobel Prizes to be announced. The six awards will be handed out on Dec. 10, the anniversary of prize founder Alfred Nobel’s death in 1896. </s> HELSINKI (AP/WCCO) — The Swedish Academy says Nobel literature winner Bob Dylan will receive his diploma and medal in Stockholm this weekend.

Dylan declined to attend ceremonies last December “due to pre-existing commitments.”

Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature and was characteristically mum about the honor, only mentioning it briefly, but with gratitude.

The folk legend was the first songwriter to win the Nobel prize for literature. The academy says it picked him for his “having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.” </s> (JTA) — The fallout from Bob Dylan’s Nobel Prize in Literature has taken a strange turn: The Jewish folk singer’s website has taken down its only brief mention of the award.

Dylan has not acknowledged the award at any of his performances in the week since the Nobel committee’s Oct. 13 announcement, but his website made one allusion to it this week on a page promoting a new collection of his lyrics, “The Lyrics: 1961: 2012.” The page on bobdylan.com simply called him the “winner of the Nobel Prize in literature.”

As of Friday morning, the reference has been erased without explanation.

The Swedish Academy has tried and failed multiple times to contact Dylan through close associates of his since the award announcement. Sara Danius, the Nobel academy’s secretary, told Swedish radio on Monday that the academy has given up attempting to contact him and could not confirm whether he would attend the award ceremony in Stockholm on Nov. 10.

Numerous publications have noted that celebrities often do not control the content of their public websites, so it is conceivable that Dylan had no input about the award’s mention on his site.

Dylan, 75, is the first artist seen primarily as a songwriter to win the award, a fact that has stirred a divisive debate in literary circles. Some writers, such as the poets Amy King and Danniel Schoonebeek, have called for him to turn down the award. </s> Bob Dylan, Titan Of American Music, Wins 2016 Nobel Prize In Literature

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Bob Dylan has won the 2016 Nobel Prize in literature. The prolific musician is the first Nobel winner to have forged a career primarily as a singer-songwriter. What's more, he's also the first American to have won the prize in more than two decades. Not since novelist Toni Morrison won in 1993 has an American claimed the prize.

Dylan earned the prize "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition," according to the citation by the Swedish Academy, the committee that annually decides the recipient of the Nobel Prize. The academy's permanent secretary, Sara Danius, announced the news Thursday.

The win comes as something of a shock. As usual, the Swedish Academy did not announce a shortlist of nominees, leaving the betting markets to their best guesses. And while Dylan has enjoyed perennial favor as an outside shot for the award, the prospect that the musician would be the one to break the Americans' long dry spell was regarded as far-fetched — not least because he made his career foremost on the stage, not the printed page.

Yet few would argue Dylan has been anything but influential, both in the U.S. and beyond its borders. The prolific singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist has produced dozens of albums, including The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited and Blood on the Tracks. His track "Like a Rolling Stone" has taken on mythic standing in the decades since its release; many, including Dylan himself, have pointed to it as emblematic of a sea change in American music.

"Tin Pan Alley is gone," Dylan proclaimed in 1985, referring the dominant conventions established by music publishers of the early 20th century. "I put an end to it. People can record their own songs now."

Dylan, who was born Robert Allen Zimmerman in 1941, "has the status of an icon," the Swedish Academy wrote in a biographical note. "His influence on contemporary music is profound, and he is the object of a steady stream of secondary literature."

In an interview following the announcement, Danius elaborated on the Swedish Academy's decision: "He is a great poet in the English-speaking tradition, and he is a wonderful sampler — a very original sampler," Danius explained. "For 54 years now he has been at it and reinventing himself, constantly creating a new identity."

And for his work, he has been amply recognized by critical community. Dylan has won Grammys, an Academy Award, a Golden Globe and a Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the U.S. Now, to that trove of honors Dylan has added a Nobel.

The Nobel Prize in literature has been awarded since 1901 to writers who have produced "the most outstanding work in an ideal direction." In that time, 109 prizes have been distributed to 113 writers. This year, the prize carries with it a purse of approximately $900,000 and, as usual, inclusion on literature's most illustrious list — the pantheon of Nobel winners.

The 75-year-old artist will receive his award in Stockholm on Dec. 10. </s> Bob Dylan will finally receive his Nobel Literature Prize this weekend in Sweden after he ruffled feathers by not accepting the award in person from the Academy late last year.

At the time, the Swedish Academy said that the singer-songwriter informed them "he wishes he could receive the prize personally, but other commitments make it unfortunately impossible." They also acknowledged that it "respects" the musician's decision, calling the move "unusual, but not exceptional."

Dylan, who is set to play two gigs in Stockholm over the weekend ahead of coming to Dublin in May, was awarded the literature prize in October 2016, with the panel citing his work with "having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition". He became the first American recipient of the prize since Toni Morrison in 1993.

A blog entry from Prof Sara Danius, the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, has confirmed that the 75-year-old artist will accept the award this weekend.

"The Academy will then hand over Dylan's Nobel diploma and the Nobel medal, and congratulate him on the Nobel Prize in Literature.

"The setting will be small and intimate, and no media will be present; only Bob Dylan and members of the Academy will attend, all according to Dylan's wishes."

In 2008, Dylan won the Pulitzer Prize for his contributions to music and American culture.

His recent status as a Nobel winner came as a surprise in a field dominated by more literary figures, such as recent winners Doris Lessing and Alice Munro and Irish winners WB Yeats, who won in 1923, George Bernard Shaw (1925), Samuel Beckett (1969), and Seamus Heaney, who won in 1995.
American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan wins the Nobel Prize in Literature.