Nobel Prize Panel Has Not Heard Back From Bob Dylan

Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Nobel Prize Panel Has Not Heard Back From Bob Dylan

Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Last week, we learned that Bob Dylan had been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature — a rare and extraordinary honor, one that’s basically never presented to songwriters. Most of us had fun speculating about how much Dylan presumably did not care. Dylan made no statement, though he did play guitar for the first time in four years at a Las Vegas concert on the same night that the announcement was made. And now the people in charge of awarding the Nobel have said that they haven’t heard from Dylan and that they don’t even know if he’ll show up to accept the award.

Today, as The Guardian reports, Sara Danius, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, told the Swedish state radio station SR, “Right now, we are doing nothing. I have called and sent emails to his closest collaborator and received very friendly replies. For now, that is certainly enough.”

She added, “I am not at all worried. I think he will show up… If he doesn’t want to come, he won’t come. It will be a big party in any case, and the honor belongs to him.”

If Dylan does decide to show up to the 12/10 ceremony, King Carl XVI Gustaf will present him the award, and he’ll get to make a speech — probably a perplexing and enigmatic one. But all of us are probably hoping, just a tiny bit, that he’ll blow the whole thing off, if only because that would be the most Dylan thing ever.

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