Bob Dylan Wins Nobel Literature Prize

Photo by Alberto Cabello

The 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded to Bob Dylan. According to a press release, Dylan has been honored for “having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.”

Dylan, born Robert Zimmerman, has been a prominent voice and polarizing personality in American music and culture for half a century. Dylan released his thirty-seventh studio album, Fallen Angels, earlier this year.

Bob Dylan songs like ‘The Times They Are a-Changin’ were an essential element of the Civil Rights era zeitgeist. Though many perceived Dylan’s work as protest music, the musician spent decades artfully dodging categorization as a protest singer or ‘the voice of a generation.’ The Nobel Prize is a recognition of the songwriter’s transcendent work.

Bob Dylan and Joan Baez during Civil Rights March on Washington D.C., 1963