Bob Dylan has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for "having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition".
The honour was announced this morning by the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, Sara Danius.
"He is a great poet," she said. "He is a great poet in the English-speaking tradition and he is a wonderful, original sampler. He embodies the tradition and for 54 years now has been at it, reinventing himself constantly, creating a new identity."
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It was a surprise choice - Japanese author Haruki Murakami was favourite to take the prize – but, Danius said: "If you look far back, 5000 years, you discover Homer and Sappho. They wrote poetic texts which were meant to be performed and it's the same way for Bob Dylan. We still read Homer and Sappho and we enjoy it."
Dylan is the first songwriter to have won the prize, says The Guardian, adding his regular appearance in the betting odds "was regarded as one of the longrunning jokes of the Nobels".
There has not been a US winner since 1993 and today's decision appears to have ended the hostility towards the country from the award's jury.
"The US is too isolated, too insular," said then permanent secretary Horace Engdahl in 2008. "They don't translate enough and don’t really participate in the big dialogue of literature … That ignorance is restraining."
The award has provoked some differing opinions on Twitter.
For Dylan, "aside from taking home the world's most prestigious prize in literature, there's also the minor matter of an eight million kronor [£93,000] award, plus a banquet dinner with Sweden's King in December," says The Local.
