A Worthy Winner

A Worthy Winner It doesn’t seem that American singer Bob Dylan has much in common with famous writers like Ernest Hemingway and T.S. Elliot, but these three figures became forever bonded by the Nobel Prize for Literature. This prize makes Bob Dylan the first American to win the title since Toni Morrison in 1993. At the same time, the surprising announcement has also ignited a heated discussion around the world. Bob Dylan’s new status, a musician awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, to a degree defies convention. However, this is by no means his first prize for his writing talents. Back in 2008, the Pulitzer Prize jury awarded Bob Dylan a special citation for his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power. In this strand, it could be argued what the Nobel Committee is doing is simply reinforcing Bob Dylan’s unshakable standing in the world of literature. The words behind Bob Dylan’s songs address social issues and have been transmitted from generation to generation. His songs like Blowin’ in the Wind were the anthems of antiwar and civil rights movements in the 1960s. His songs such as Mr Tambourine Man pushed the folk-rock movement. Even today, many of Bob Dylan’s songs are popular with people all over the world. In a speech in 2015, Bob Dylan revealed how he used lyrics to document American culture and create an American songbook of his own. “I learned lyrics and how to write them from listening to folk songs,” said Bob Dylan. “I played them, and I met other people that played them back when nobody was doing it.” There is nothing more honorable to win acclaim from one’s competitors, but Bob Dylan did it. Salman Rushdie, an Indian novelist also thought to have been a candidate for the prize, told The New York Times, “Bob Dylan is the brilliant inheritor of the bardic tradition. It is a great choice.”