Bob Dylan is the first rocker to be inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Robert Allen Zimmerman joins such famed figures as Sinclair Lewis, Kurt Vonnegut, Duke Ellington, Frank Lloyd Wright and others named to the academy.
Additions to the academy come from music, literature and the visual arts. On March 13 the academy announced that Dylan was made an honorary member be-cause of “the diversity of his work” and “his iconic place in the American culture,” said the academy’s Virginia Dajani. She added that Dylan “is a multitalented artist whose work so thoroughly crosses several disciplines that it defies categorization.”
Dylan will be inducted in May, but he likely will not attend the ceremony since he’s booked tour dates during that time. — jta