AKIPRESS.COM - The 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded to American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, for "having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition," CNN reports.
The Swedish Academy's permanent secretary, Sara Danius, said Dylan, 75, "is a great poet in the English-speaking tradition." She drew parallels between his work and that of ancient Greek poets.
"If you look back, far back, 2,500 years or so, you discover Homer and Sappho and they wrote poetic texts that were meant to be listened to, that were meant to be performed, often with instruments -- and it's the same way with Bob Dylan," she said.
Although Dylan is not in the established canon of literary writers, Danius praised his creative output over five decades, including his constant reinvention of himself. She also described him as "a wonderful sampler, a very original sampler."'
Dylan's music and lyrics spoke to a generation of people during the tumultuous 1960s and helped galvanize the civil rights movement. His influence continues to permeate through rock, pop and folk music today.
Asked where those unfamiliar with Dylan's work should start, Danius -- a professor in literature at Stockholm University-- recommended his 1966 album "Blonde on Blonde," saying it contained "many examples of his brilliant way of rhyming and putting together refrains and his pictorial thinking."