At this point, I have stopped trying to figure out how and why certain people are winners of the prestigious Nobel Prize. For some most deserving recipients, such as President Jimmy Carter in 2002, it was just a matter of time. However, the announcement of others takes me by real surprise. The most recent example is Bob Dylan, Nobel laureate in literature, who has been highly influential in the music scene for decades and for which he will receive an enormous check.

There have been plenty of musicians in my lifetime who have also “created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition” (Leight, 2016). I hope I am not diminishing the tremendous honor bestowed upon Bob Dylan when I ask what singled him out of a crop of accomplished musicians such as James Taylor and Billy Joel? I was also among the shocked when, in 2009 at the birth of his Presidency, President Barack Obama was announced as winner. President Obama, just settling in at the White House, had not yet made a mark at all.

Another perplexing winner is Elfriede Jelinek of Austria Continue reading Elfriede Jelinek, Nobel Prize winner →