The left-wing singer-songwriter Bob Dylan has won the Nobel prize for literature, the first time the award has been given to someone not primarily known for writing books. Although he published a novel in the stream-of-consciousness style, Tarantula, his main medium has been pop and rock music.
Sara Danius, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, said Dylan had been chosen because he was “a great poet in the English-speaking tradition”.
“For 54 years now he’s been at it reinventing himself, constantly creating a new identity,” she told reporters in Stockholm.
Dylan supported the student revolution and the hippie movement in the 1960s, exemplified by his famous song “The times they are a-changin”.