Bob Dylan’s Nobel Prize Win Seriously Annoys Authors

“I totally get the Nobel committee,” novelist Gary Shteyngart jokes, “reading books is hard”

Bob Dylan, with top hat near Auckland, New Zealand March 1978
Bob Dylan, with top hat near Auckland, New Zealand March 1978

Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday, but he definitely didn’t win any friends in literary circles.

A number of authors vented their frustration online that Dylan was chosen as this year’s recipient of the prestigious award. The Nobel Prize in Literature traditionally goes to novelists, poets and playwrights, rather than songwriters.

Read some of the reactions below.

To be fair, no one really expected Dylan to win.

The New Republic put his odds of winning at 50:1 just last week. And no American has taken the Nobel Prize in Literature since Toni Morrison in 1993.

Needless to say, when Dylan beat out major writers like Philip Roth and Joyce Carol Oates, there were audible gasps and chuckles in the hall in Stockholm, Sweden, per Reuters.

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