Bob Dylan has been awarded the Nobel prize in literature, the first songwriter to have ever done so. Some people believes this as a mistake and some think it’s great.

The Norwegian author Karl Ove Knausgaard is divided:

I’m very divided. I love that the novel committee opens up for other kinds of literature – lyrics and so on. I think that’s brilliant. But knowing that Dylan is the same generation as Pynchon, Philip Roth, Cormac McCarthy, makes it very difficult for me to accept it. I think one of those three should have had it, really. But if they get it next year, it will be fine.

While Dylan’s songwriting peer and friend Leonard Cohen thinks its pointless:

To me is like pinning a medal on Mount Everest for being the highest mountain.

If you look up the definition of literature, it states:

written works, especially those considered of superior or lasting artistic merit

My personal opinion on this matter is: a) I think it’s unfair to deem songwriting as “less worthy” due to the fact that it’s primarily delivered in a shorter format, with music and melody, and, b) I like that the Nobel Committee for Literature isn’t a stale entity and that it allow itself to evolve.