Who is Bob Dylan and why was he given the Nobel Prize

On Thursday, October 13, American singer Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. This is the first time in history that this prestigious award has been received by a person primarily known as a musician. According to the official wording, the prize was awarded "for the creation of new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition."

The 75-year-old musician, poet and author has been among the contenders for the award several times, but few expected that the Swedish Academy would expand the range of laureates so much that popular musicians would be among them.

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Source: dailymail.co.uk

The news was greeted with numerous gasps of surprise and prolonged applause from journalists waiting for the results to be announced. "Bob Dylan presents his poems in the form of songs, and there is no difference between him and the ancient Greek authors, because their poetic lines also often became the basis for songs. Bob Dylan creates works that are pleasant to listen to, but his works are also pleasant and easy to read as poems," explained the Permanent Secretary of the Academy, Sarah Danius.

The Nobel Prize in Literature is the most recent example of recognition of the merits of a singer who has gone a long way to fame. He became the first American since 1992 to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Bob was born in 1941 in Minnesota to a middle-class Jewish family and taught himself to play the harmonica, guitar and keyboards.

In his twenties, Bob Dylan took the world of folk music by storm. His songs Blowin’ in the Wind and The Times They Are A-Changin became the real anthems of the anti-war campaign and the civil rights movement in the 1960s.

In 2008, Bob was awarded the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for his contribution to the development of music and American culture.

According to Rolling Stone magazine, Bob Dylan is the second most important performer in the history of music after The Beatles. By the way, if Bob is the usual abbreviation for the name Robert for the USA, then Dylan is not the musician's real surname. At birth, his name was Robert Allen Zimmerman, and the name for Bob's pseudonym was the name of his favorite poet, Dylan Thomas. Bob's ancestors are Jews, immigrants from the Russian Empire.

The official award ceremony will take place on December 10, 2016. Dylan will take home 8 million Swedish kronor (906 thousand dollars). By the way, in addition to the Nobel and Pulitzer Prizes, Bob won several more prestigious awards: Grammy, Oscar and Golden Globe.

The award of the Literature Prize completes the 2016 Nobel season. Within a little more than a week, the winners of the prize in the fields of medicine, physics, chemistry, economics and the promotion of world peace were announced.