Today, Bob Dylan is being awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, joining Toni Morrison and Ernest Hemingway in a growing group of American Masters who are also Nobel Laureates. All controversy aside, Dylan revolutionized the way we view music and contributed to a social movement that changed the nation. In honor of this group’s remarkable achievements, we wanted to celebrate their truly groundbreaking and iconic work.
Bob Dylan
American Masters Film: No Direction Home: Bob Dylan (2005)
Year Awarded: 2016
Prize Motivation: For having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.
Quote: I define nothing … I take each thing as it is, without prior rules about what it should be.
Known For: Blowin’ in the Wind
Toni Morrison
American Masters Film: The Women’s List (2015)
Year Awarded: 1993
Prize Motivation: Who in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential aspect of American reality.
Quote: There is no modernity and no justice without the talent, the passion and the steely intelligence of women.
Known For: The Bluest Eye
Ernest Hemingway
American Masters Film: Ernest Hemingway: Rivers to the Sea (2005)
Year Awarded: 1954
Prize Motivation: For his mastery of the art of narrative, most recently demonstrated in The Old Man and the Sea, and for the influence that he has exerted on contemporary style.
Quote: There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.
Known For: The Old Man and the Sea