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Nobel Prizes

Bob Dylan wins Nobel Prize in Literature

Jane Onyanga-Omara
USA TODAY

U.S. folk singer and songwriter Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday.

This July 22, 2012, file photo shows U.S. singer-songwriter Bob Dylan performing onstage at "Les Vieilles Charrues" Festival in Carhaix, western France.

The 75-year-old won the prize "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition," the Swedish Academy said.

The surprise announcement marks the first time the award has gone to someone who is mainly seen as a musician.

"For 54 years he has been at it, reinventing himself," said Sara Danius, the academy's permanent secretary.

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“Bob Dylan writes poetry for the ear. But it’s perfectly fine to read his works as poetry,” she said.

Minnesota-born Dylan is the first American to win the prize for literature since Toni Morrison in 1993.

Dylan, whose songs include Blowin’ in the Wind and The Times They Are A-Changin, won a Pulitzer Prize in 2008 for his “profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power.”

Director Martin Scorsese said he was "overjoyed" with the news in a statement Thursday.

"Dylan's poetry, his musical genius, has meant so much to me personally and to generations of people around the world," Scorsese said. "His work has impacted and shaped culture, and he has never stopped exploring and growing as an artist. The Nobel Committee has given Dylan a form of recognition that befits his role in our culture — in world culture.”

Earlier Thursday, the Italian news agency ANSA reported that playwright and actor Dario Fo, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1997, died in a hospital in Milan at the age of 90.

Famous for his biting political satire, the writer of Accidental Death of an Anarchist performed the one-man play Mistero Buffo around the world for 30 years.

"His satire, his research, his work on set design, his multi-faceted artistic activity remain the legacy of a great Italian in the world,” said Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.

The Nobel Prize in Literature was the last Nobel prize to be announced, after the prizes in economics medicine, physics, chemistry and the Nobel Peace Prize. The winners will collect them at a ceremony on Dec. 10.

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