New York: Thanks to Bob Dylan, rock 'n' roll has finally broken through the Pulitzer wall.

Dylan, the most acclaimed and influential songwriter of the past half century, who brought rock from the streets to the lecture hall, received an honorary Pulitzer Prize on Monday.

Dylan was cited for his "profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power."

It was the first time Pulitzer judges, who have long favored classical music, and, more recently, jazz, awarded an art form once dismissed as barbaric, even subversive.

"I am in disbelief," Dylan fan and fellow Pulitzer winner Junot Diaz said of Dylan's award.

Diaz's "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao," a tragic but humorous story of desire, politics and violence among Dominicans at home and in the United States, won the fiction prize.

Long after most of his contemporaries either died, left the business or held on by the ties of nostalgia, Dylan continues to tour almost continuously.

 He has been releasing highly regarded CDs, most recently "Modern Times."

Protest anthems such as "Blowin' in the Wind" made Dylan a poet and prophet for a rebellious generation. His songs include countless biblical references.

Fans, critics and academics have obsessed over his lyrics _ even digging through his garbage for clues since the mid-1960s.

Dylon claims Chekhov, Walt Whitman and Jack Kerouac as influences.

His memoir, "Chronicles, Volume One," received a National Book Critics Circle nomination in 2005 and is widely acknowledged as the rare celebrity book that can be treated as literature.

According to publisher Simon & Schuster, Dylan is working on a second volume of memoirs. No release date has been set.