International News

STOCKHOLM, Oct 14, (APP/AFP) – US music legend Bob Dylan, whose poetic lyrics have influenced generations of fans, won the Nobel Literature Prize on Thursday, the first songwriter to win the award in a decision that stunned prize watchers. The 75-year-old was honoured “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition”, the Swedish Academy said. The choice was met by gasps and a long round of spontaneous applause from journalists attending the prize announcement. The folk rock singer had been mentioned in Nobel speculation over the years, but was never seen as a serious contender. The Academy’s permanent secretary Sara Danius said Dylan’s songs were “poetry for the ears” while acknowledging that some might find Dylan a “strange” choice. “If you think back to Homer and Sappho, you realise that was also aural poetry. It was meant to be performed, together with instruments,” she said. “But we still read them, 2,500-some years later… And in much the same way you can read Bob Dylan too,” she told AFP. Embodying both “the intellectual and popular tradition”, he had been influenced by the Delta blues, folk music from the Appalachians and others such as the nineteenth century French poet Arthur Rimbaud who wrote in a surrealist style, she added.