Bob Dylan has won the Nobel Prize for Literature making him the 259th American to receive the honour.

Dylan received the honour “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition”. Sarah Danils, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, announcing the result, said that “for 54 years, [Dylan] has been at it, reinventing himself,” describing Blonde On Blonde as “an extraordinary example of his brilliant way of rhyming, putting together refrains, and his brilliant way of thinking”.

Danils also compared Dylan to such greats as Homer and Sappho, saying that while the decision to award Dylan with the prize may at first seem surprising, “they wrote poetic texts which were meant to be performed, and it’s the same way for Bob Dylan”.