The panel behind the award has not left the answer to critics blowing in the wind. Conferring the top literature title to a rock legend for the first time, it said the US songwriter was honoured for “having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition”. With a career spanning 54 years and no fewer than 14 awards in the entertainment world, few could dispute Dylan’s stature and influence. But compared to his predecessors like Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Ernest Hemingway, T.S. Elliot, George Bernard Shaw and Rudyard Kipling, he is the odd one out.

The award has fuelled as much debate over Dylan’s worthiness as a Nobel laureate as whether song lyrics can be considered literary works. While the decision has been applauded by some as stepping out of the box of intellectualism and elitism, many scholars and readers would however take issue with according song lyrics literary status. Even for those who are convinced by the classification, they may opt for other candidates. After all, songwriters, including many in this part of the world, are arguably just as good, if not greater. By awarding the top prize to someone primarily known for something other than literature does not do justice to many well recognised writers around the world.

That Nobel prizes are fraught with debate is nothing new. The Swedish Academy, the assessment body for the literature award, has long been criticised for being biased or insensitive to winners’ political background. Granting the top literature prize to a songwriter surely adds to the list of controversies.