Bob Dylan awarded Nobel Prize for literature

Bob Dylan has won the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature.

The singer was credited "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition".

It is the first time the £760,000 award has been given to someone primarily seen as a musician.

Dylan had been mentioned in the Nobel speculation for years, but few experts expected the Swedish Academy to extend the prestigious award to a genre such as pop music.

Literature was the last of this year's Nobel prizes to be awarded.

The prize is named after dynamite inventor Alfred Nobel and has been awarded since 1901 for achievements in science, literature and peace in accordance with his will.

The six Nobel Prizes - for peace, literature, medicine, economic sciences, chemistry and physics - will be handed out on December 10 - the anniversary of prize founder Alfred Nobel's death.

Speaking after the award's announcement, Billy Bragg said that there was no other musician more deserving of the award than Bob Dylan.

The singer and songwriter said: "Nobody else has brought poetry to the American song tradition in the way that Bob Dylan has".

Dylan taught people that there was more to pop music than just writing about relationships, Bragg said, adding: "The line bewteen poetry and song writing is very thin and permeable."

Bragg also comapred Bob Dylan and his music to William Blake and his poety book, Songs of Innocence and Experience.