WASHINGTON: Musical legend Bob Dylan, novelist Toni Morrison and former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright are among 13 people who will be awarded the country's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, by President Barack Obama next week, the White House said.

The presentations will be made at the White House on May 29.

Also chosen to receive the award were former senator and astronaut John Glenn, retired US Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, Israeli President Shimon Peres and Jan Karski, an officer in the Polish underground who carried the first eye-witness accounts of the Nazi Holocaust to the outside world.

The award also will be given to John Doar, a key figure in the Justice Department during the civil rights era; William Foege, who helped spread smallpox immunizations around the world; Gordon Hirabayashi, who fought Japanese-American World War Two internment; civil rights campaigner Dolores Huerta; Girl Scouts founder Juliette Gordon Low; and former University of Tennessee women's basketball coach Pat Summitt.

Peres will not attend the ceremony and will receive his medal at a separate event, the White House said.