Fans have long argued that the best rock music has literary merit, but all of a sudden it's becoming officially recognised. Leonard Cohen has just won a major Spanish literary prize, while Bob Dylan has been nominated for a $50,000 (£30,000) American books award.

The Canadian singer and poet Cohen was named winner of Spain's Prince of Asturias Award for Letters, worth €50,000 (£45,000), yesterday, for "a body of literary work that has influenced three generations of people worldwide through his creation of emotional imagery in which poetry and music are fused in an oeuvre of immutable merit".

Cohen beat 31 other contenders from around the world to win the prize, taken in the past by Margaret Atwood, Günter Grass, Amos Oz and Paul Auster. "Considered one of the most influential authors of our time, his poems and songs have beautifully explored the major issues of humanity in great depth," said the jury in a statement. "The passing of time, sentimental relationships, the mystical traditions of the East and the West and life sung as an unending ballad make up a body of work associated with certain moments of decisive change at the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st century."

As Cohen said that he was "most grateful to be recognised by the countrymen of Machado and Lorca, and my friend Morente, and the incomparable companions of the Spanish guitar", news emerged that another singer, Bob Dylan, was also in contention for a major literary award. Dylan has been nominated for the $50,000 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, previously won by Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer, Colombian novelist Gabriel García Márquez, Algerian novelist Assia Djebar and Polish poet Adam Zagajewski.

Dylan, who has regularly been given odds to win the Nobel prize for literature, is one of nine nominees for this year's award, alongside Booker winner John Banville, Bosnian novelist Aleksandar Hemon, Moroccan poet and writer Tahar Ben Jelloun and the Indian/Canadian author Rohinton Mistry. The winner will be announced in September. The times are indeed a-changin'.