Bob Dylan, Titan Of American Music, Wins 2016 Nobel Prize In Literature

LONDON — The singer and songwriter Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday for “having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition,” in the words of the Swedish Academy.

He is the first American to win since the novelist Toni Morrison, in 1993. The announcement, in Stockholm, came as something of a surprise. Although Mr. Dylan, 75, has been mentioned often as having an outside shot at the prize, his work does not fit into the traditional literary canons of novels, poetry and short stories that the prize has traditionally recognized.

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The Permanent Secretary

Press Release
13 October 2016

The Nobel Prize in Literature 2016

Bob Dylan

The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2016 is awarded to Bob Dylan

"for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition".

Press release from the Swedish Academy @bobdylan awarded 2016 #NobelPrize in Literature: http://goo.gl/am7EcK 

7:01 AM - 13 Oct 2016 · Stockholm, Sweden, Sweden

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“Mr. Dylan’s work remains utterly lacking in conventionality, moral sleight of hand, pop pabulum or sops to his audience,” Bill Wyman wrote in a 2013 Op-Ed essay in The New York Times arguing the case for Mr. Dylan’s getting the award. “His lyricism is exquisite; his concerns and subjects are demonstrably timeless and few poets of any era have seen their work bear more influence.”

The Nobel, one of the world’s most prestigious and financially generous awards, comes with a prize of 8 million Swedish kronor, or just over $900,000. The literature prize is given for a lifetime of writing rather than for a single work.

The prize announcement came hours after news of the death at age 90 of Dario Fo, the Italian playwright, director, and performer whose satirical work was recognized by the 1997 prize.

Previous Nobel laureates in literature have included giants like Rudyard Kipling, William Faulkner, John Steinbeck and Gabriel García Márquez.

Photo

Mr. Dylan in Paris in 1987.CreditBertrand Guay/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

In recent years, the prize has gone to a stylistically and geographically diverse group of writers, among them the Belarussian journalist Svetlana Alexievich in 2015, the French novelist Patrick Modiano in 2014, the Canadian short story writer Alice Munro in 2013, the Chinese novelist and short story writer Mo Yan in 2012, and the Swedish poet Tomas Transtromer in 2011.

In the weeks before the announcement, speculation about potential winners swirled in the literary world and even in betting markets. Some familiar names were bandied about, including the American novelists Philip Rothand Don DeLillo, the Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami, the Kenyan playwright Ngugi wa Thiong’o, and the Syrian poet known as Adonis. Other writers seen as having an outside shot at the prize included the Albanian writer Ismail Kadare, the Spanish novelist Javier Marías and the South Korean poet Ko Un.

When Ms. Alexievich won last year, it was a rare instance of a nonfiction writer being honored by the Nobel committee for her artistic achievement. Ms. Alexievich, a journalist who has used oral history to examine painful moments in the history of the Soviet Union, including the Chernobyl disaster and the experience of Russian soldiers in Afghanistan, bases her books on years’ worth of interviews with hundreds of people.

Other 2016 winners

■ Yoshinori Ohsumi, a Japanese cell biologist, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine on Oct. 3 for his discoveries on how cells recycle their content, a process known as autophagy, a Greek term for “self-eating.”

■ David J. Thouless, F. Duncan M. Haldane and J. Michael Kosterlitz shared the Nobel Prize in Physics on Oct. 4 for their research into the bizarre properties of matter in extreme states.

■ Jean-Pierre Sauvage, J. Fraser Stoddart and Bernard L. Feringa shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry on Oct. 5 for development of molecular machines, the world’s smallest mechanical devices.

■ President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for pursuing a deal to end 52 years of conflict with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, the longest-running war in the Americas.

■ Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmstrom were awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science on Monday for their work on improving the design of contracts, the deals that bind together employers and their workers, or companies and their customers

Credit:  SEWELL CHAN