Bob Dylan Wins Nobel Prize for Literature

He's been called the voice of a generation, the greatest popular songwriter of our time and the poet laureate of rock 'n' roll. Now Bob Dylan can add another lofty accolade to his resume: the Nobel Prize in Literature.

The Swedish Academy on Thursday awarded Dylan, 75, the prestigious award "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition."

Dylan is the first American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature since Toni Morrison in 1993.

The announcement was made by Sara Danius, permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy. In an interview for the Nobel Prize website after the announcement, Darius was asked about the "radical" choice: "Does Bob Dylan really deserve the Nobel Prize? Why?"

"Why?" replied Darius, almost incredulously. "Well, of course he does, he just got it. He is a great poet. He is a great poet in the English-speaking tradition, and he is a wonderful sampler, a very original sampler. He embodies the tradition, and for 54 years now, he's been at it and reinventing himself constantly, creating a new identity." (You can watch the video below.)

A representative for Dylan told the Associated Press that the singer had no immediate comment.

Dylan was born Robert Allen Zimmerman in Duluth, Minnesota, in 1941 and moved to New York City in 1961, where he became immersed in the thriving Greenwich Village folk scene. His first album, simply titled "Bob Dylan," was released in 1962. He went on to release influential folk albums until he famously "plugged in," playing electric guitar-driven rock at the Newport Folk Festival and on the 1965 albums "Bringing It All Back Home" and "Highway 61 Revisited." The latter album kicks off with one of his most well-known songs, "Like A Rolling Stone."

In the 1970s, Dylan released key albums such as 1975's "Blood on the Tracks," before entering a much-debated Christian rock period with a trio of albums in 1979, 1980 and 1981. His 1989 album "Oh Mercy" is considered by many to be another masterpiece and a comeback of sorts, and he has been enjoying a late-career renaissance beginning with 1997's "Time Out of Mind."

Dylan's most recent albums, "Shadows in the Night" (2015) and this year's "Fallen Angels," do not feature his own songs, but instead find Dylan paying tribute to the classic American songbook; all of the songs on the two albums, besides one, were originally sung by Frank Sinatra. He published his memoirs, "Chronicles: Volume 1," in 2004. His last album of original material, "Tempest," was released in 2012.

Among Dylan's honors include the Medal of Freedom, which President Obama presented in 2012.

"By the time he was 23, Bob’s voice, with its weight, its unique, gravelly power was redefining not just what music sounded like, but the message it carried and how it made people feel," Obama said at the Medal of Freedom ceremony. "Today, everybody from Bruce Springsteen to U2 owes Bob a debt of gratitude. There is not a bigger giant in the history of American music. All these years later, he’s still chasing that sound, still searching for a little bit of truth. And I have to say that I am a really big fan."

Obama tweeted his congratulations to Dylan Thursday.

Congratulations to one of my favorite poets, Bob Dylan, on a well-deserved Nobel. https://t.co/c9cnANWPCS
— President Obama (@POTUS) October 13, 2016

Dylan will be awarded the Nobel Prize on Dec. 10 in Stockholm, and the award comes with 8 million Swedish Kronor (about $900,000), according to Rolling Stone.

He has been performing on his so-called "Never-Ending Tour" since the late 1980s. He is currently on tour and will perform in Las Vegas Thursday night and at the Desert Trip festival on Friday.

BREAKING 2016 #NobelPrize in Literature to Bob Dylan “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition” pic.twitter.com/XYkeJKRfhv
— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 13, 2016

Image credit: Alberto Cabello from Vitoria Gasteiz via Wikimedia Commons