Musician and writer Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday. The jury selected him "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition”. Other names in the race were Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o, contemporary Japanese author Haruki Murakami and Syrian poet, essayist and translator Adonis. The iconic singer has won 11 Grammys and an Academy Award.

Dylan's writing and lyrics have often incorporated political, social, philosophical, and literary influences. In 2008, the Pulitzer Prize jury gave him a special citation for "his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power."

The Nobel prizes are awarded by the Nobel Foundation, established on the guidelines issued by the inventor of dynamite, Alfred Nobel. This year, the literature prize was the last of the six Nobels to be announced after medicine, physics, chemistry, peace and economics.

The 2016 Nobel Prize for Medicine was awarded to Japanese cell biologist Yoshinori Ohsumi. The Physics Nobel was won by British scientists DJ Thouless, FDM Haldane and JM Kosterlitz for studies in "exotic matter". The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to JP Sauvage, Sir J Fraser Stoddart and BL Feringa for their work on the development of molecular machines. Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmstrom won the Economics Prize for their research on contract theory, while the Peace Prize was awarded to Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos for his role in ending the 52-year-long civil war in the country.