Bob Dylan is the winner of 2016 Nobel Literature Prize!

With a musical career spanning over six decades, Dylan’s mellifluous voice is familiar to every musical aficionado. However, trough this prestigious award, he is not awarded for his musical talents, but rather for the strong poetic lyrics he has written. According to The Swedish Academy Dylan is awarded for “…having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.”

Dylan has written many songs about important issues about war, morale, and betrayal. He has also written many lyrics about heartbreak, death and love. Through these lyrics, we were taught the beauty of life’s greatest tragedies.

Though Dylan is considered by many to be a musician, not a writer, his artistic reach of his lyrics and poetry could not be put in a single box.

Dylan is one of the few legends still alive today, and not to mention still active. Just last week, he performed at the Desert Trip festival in California alongside other living legends such as Paul McCartney and The Rolling Stones.

It is not know how Dylan reacted to the prize, since he is very private. Moreover, he is the first American to win the prestigious award since Toni Morrison in 1993. Even though Dylan is not a writer/poet in the traditional sense, his lyrics are considered to be literature. As the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, Sara Danius, had said, choosing 2016’s winner “…had not been a difficult decision” and she hoped the academy would not be criticized for its choice. Bob Dylan is truly deserving of this award.