2016 Nobel Prize in Literature

The 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded to Bob Dylan. The prize was announced by the Swedish Academy in Stockholm on 13 October 2016.

The citation

The citation reads: "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition".

The laureate

Bob Dylan was born in 1941 in Duluth, the United States.

Why it matters

The American singer-songwriter is the first musician to receive the literature prize, recognised for songs such as Blowin' in the Wind and Like a Rolling Stone.

The prize

The prize is worth 8 million Swedish kronor. It will be presented at a ceremony in Stockholm on 10 December, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite whose will founded the prizes in 1895.