US singer-songwriter Bob Dylan has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. The Swedish Academy announced its decision drawing to a close the 2016 Nobel season.

Dylan’s surprise win marked the first time the prestigious award was bestowed to someone primarily seen as a musician.

The songwriter, 74, had been mentioned in the Nobel speculation for years, but few experts expected the academy to extend the award to a genre such as pop music.

This year, the literature prize was the last of the six Nobels’ to be announced, following those for medicine, physics, chemistry, peace and economics.

The six awards will be handed out on December 10, the anniversary of prize founder Alfred Nobel’s death in 1896.

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