Bob Dylan wins 2016 Nobel Prize in literature

This July 22, 2012 file photo shows U.S. singer-songwriter Bob Dylan performing on at “Les Vieilles Charrues” Festival in Carhaix, western France. AP FILE PHOTO

(UPDATE) Rock icon Bob Dylan has won the Nobel in Literature, the Associated Press reported Wednesday.

The Swedish Academy cited the American musician for “having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition,” the report said.

Dylan is composer-singer of “Blowin’ In The Wind,” “The Times They Are a Changin’,” “Like a Rolling Stone” and “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door”, among other rock classics. He has released more than 35 studio albums, which include the landmark “Highway 61 Revisited”.

He is a major influence to The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, U2, Jimi Hendrix, Pearl Jam and the next generation of musicians all over the world.

Another American icon, the late Steve Jobs, had also been very vocal how he worshipped Dylan and had often quoted him in his Macintosh speeches.

The 75-year-old music legend, whose real name is Robert Allen Zimmerman, is also a published poet. His collection, “Tarantula”, was written and published in the mid-60s and had the influence of the beat generation.

AP reported “Dylan had been mentioned in the Nobel speculation for years, but few experts expected the academy to extend the prestigious award to a genre such as pop music.”

Dylan beats American novelists Philip Roth, Joyce Carol Oats, Don DeLillo and perennial favorite, Japanese author Haruki Murakami.