Dylan to Accept Nobel
It’s not a headline one might expect to see on the Nobel site, but yesterday a post appeared titled, “Good news about Dylan.”
In a few days Bob Dylan will visit Stockholm and give two concerts. The Swedish Academy is very much looking forward to the weekend and will show up at one of the performances. Please note that no Nobel Lecture will be held. The Academy has reason to believe that a taped version will be sent at a later point. (Taped Nobel lectures are presented now and then, the latest of which was that of Nobel Laureate Alice Munro in 2013.) At this point no further details are known.
The good news is that the Swedish Academy and Bob Dylan have decided to meet this weekend. The Academy will then hand over Dylan’s Nobel diploma and the Nobel medal, and congratulate him on the Nobel Prize in Literature. The setting will be small and intimate, and no media will be present; only Bob Dylan and members of the Academy will attend, all according to Dylan’s wishes.
Why has Dylan remained silent so long? NPR Music Editor Andrew Flanagan theorizes, on somewhat thin evidence, that the singer has been “revisiting his own development.”
UPDATE: Several news sources, including Vanity Fair report that the “small private gathering” took place on Saturday, April 1.