Though never widely popular in China, singer is acknowledged by some for his poetic lyrics

The news that Bob Dylan had won this year's Nobel Prize for Literature came as a surprise to many Chinese, who had showed sympathy for Japanese writer Haruki Murakami.

The latter arguably has a much larger fan base in China and had perennially been rumored to be the next Nobel laureate for literature.

"Nobody would expect a singer to win a Nobel," said Chen Xiaoming, a Peking University professor specializing in literary criticism. He joked that the award was "a performance piece by the jury". But he also admitted that Dylan did indeed represent cultural radicalism and the avant-garde spirit of the 1950s and 1960s.

Nowadays, Chen said, Dylan just elicits a sense of nostalgia.

Wang Xiaofeng, a music critic who has written extensively about Dylan, said: "The elderly Nobel jurors were once part of the young generation and grew up with Dylan. They could well be under his influence."

"Giving Dylan the Nobel is like Dylan plugging his guitar into electric power in the old days," Wang said of the icon, who took fans of his acoustic music by surprise when he began using electric instruments in 1965.

Dylan has been nominated repeatedly for the Nobel Prize in Literature since 1997.

"Many of us are surprised because we intuitively equate anything that's sung with the type of lame pop lyrics we take for granted," said Hao Fang, another music critic. "Dylan's lyrics would not pale next to the best poems of his contemporaries. The texts alone would suffice, but they achieve a special drama when combined with music and sung rather than read."

Hao added that Dylan would probably not make a fuss about the prestigious award:

"He knows clearly what his stature is in the pantheon of culture."

Hao said the singer, who performed in Beijing and Shanghai in 2011 - his only shows on the Chinese mainland - has never been popular in China, compared with Michael Jackson, Madonna or The Beatles.

raymondzhou@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily Africa Weekly 10/21/2016 page20)