section_path: Accolades and honors/Nobel Prize in Literature
section_name: Nobel Prize in Literature
paragraph_text: Nobel Prize in Literature
  
  In 1996, Gordon Ball of the Virginia Military Institute nominated Dylan for the Nobel Prize in Literature, initiating a campaign that lasted for 20 years. On October 13, 2016, the Nobel committee announced that it would be awarding Dylan the prize "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition". The New York Times reported: "Mr. Dylan, 75, is the first musician to win the award, and his selection on Thursday is perhaps the most radical choice in a history stretching back to 1901." Dylan remained silent for days after receiving the award, and then told journalist Edna Gundersen that it was "amazing, incredible. Whoever dreams about something like that?" Dylan's Nobel Lecture was posted on the Nobel Prize website on June 5, 2017. Horace Engdahl, a member of the Nobel Committee, described Dylan's place in literary history:
  
  a singer worthy of a place beside the Greek bards, beside Ovid, beside the Romantic visionaries, beside the kings and queens of the blues, beside the forgotten masters of brilliant standards.
  
  In 1996, Gordon Ball of the Virginia Military Institute nominated Dylan for the Nobel Prize in Literature, initiating a campaign that lasted for 20 years. On October 13, 2016, the Nobel committee announced that it would be awarding Dylan the prize "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition". The New York Times reported: "Mr. Dylan, 75, is the first musician to win the award, and his selection on Thursday is perhaps the most radical choice in a history stretching back to 1901." Dylan remained silent for days after receiving the award, and then told journalist Edna Gundersen that it was "amazing, incredible. Whoever dreams about something like that?" Dylan's Nobel Lecture was posted on the Nobel Prize website on June 5, 2017. Horace Engdahl, a member of the Nobel Committee, described Dylan's place in literary history:
  
  a singer worthy of a place beside the Greek bards, beside Ovid, beside the Romantic visionaries, beside the kings and queens of the blues, beside the forgotten masters of brilliant standards.