Who became the first songwriter to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature?
- A.Leonard Cohen
- B.Bob Dylan
- C.Paul Simon
- D.Bruce Springsteen
Correct answer
Explanation
The correct answer is B, Bob Dylan. The Swedish Academy awarded the prize to Dylan in 2016 for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition, the first time a songwriter had been honoured in the literature category, and the choice was widely debated because his words were written to be sung. Option A, Leonard Cohen, was a poet and novelist as well as a songwriter and is often named in the same breath, but he never received the Nobel Prize. Option C, Paul Simon, and option D, Bruce Springsteen, are celebrated American songwriters who have won many music awards but no Nobel. Two useful nearby facts are that Winston Churchill won the literature prize in 1953 for his historical writing and oratory, and Kazuo Ishiguro won it in 2017.
Read the full article: Nobel Prize in Literature: Laureates and Their Works
Practice Questions
View allFor which collection of poems was Rabindranath Tagore awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913?
- A.Gora
- B.Gitanjali
- C.Chokher Bali
- D.Ghare Baire
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The Swedish Academy cited the profoundly sensitive and beautiful verse of Gitanjali, which Tagore had himself rendered into English as Song Offerings and published in 1912 with an introduction by W. B. Yeats; the prize made him the first Asian and the first non-European laureate in any Nobel category.
Read the full explanation →Who wrote the book 'The Golden Boat'?
- A.Satyajit Ray
- B.Munshi Prem Chand
- C.Rabindranath Tagore
- D.RK Narayan
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The Golden Boat is the English title of Sonar Tari, the Bengali collection of poems Tagore published in 1894, nineteen years before his Nobel Prize, and its title poem is among the best known in modern Bengali verse.
Read the full explanation →Which institution selects the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature?
- A.The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
- B.The Swedish Academy
- C.The Norwegian Nobel Committee
- D.The Karolinska Institute
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Alfred Nobel's will of 1895 named a different body for each prize, and for literature it named the Academy in Stockholm, founded in 1786 to guard the Swedish language, which still announces the laureate each October.
Read the full explanation →Who was the first woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature?
- A.Selma Lagerlof
- B.Pearl S. Buck
- C.Toni Morrison
- D.Grazia Deledda
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The Swedish writer won the prize in 1909, eight years after the prize was first given, and she was later also the first woman elected to the Swedish Academy itself.
Read the full explanation →Which writer refused the Nobel Prize in Literature awarded to him in 1964?
- A.Albert Camus
- B.Boris Pasternak
- C.Jean-Paul Sartre
- D.Samuel Beckett
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The French philosopher and novelist declined the prize of 1964, explaining that a writer must not allow himself to be transformed into an institution and that he had always refused official honours.
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