US legend Bob Dylan performs on stage during the 21st edition of the Vieilles Charrues music festival on July 22, 2012 in Carhaix-Plouguer, western France. AFP PHOTO / FRED TANNEAU (Photo credit should read FRED TANNEAU/AFP/GettyImages)

The folk icon has until June to deliver a lecture or he loses out on $910,000.

Bob Dylan will finally deign to accept the Nobel Prize for Literature in person this weekend, the Swedish Academy has said, six months after the songwriter was first announced as receiving the prestigious award.

The Academy has maintained that its sole requirement of Dylan is that he delivers a lecture within six months of the December ceremony – and that without this, he will have to forfeit the 8 million Swedish kronor ($910,000) cash prize that comes with the award.

With three months to go until the June deadline, Dylan has managed to find room in his schedule at last as his current world tour touches down in Stockholm for two dates this weekend.

However, his lecture will be taped rather than live, according to a blog entry by Prof Sara Danius, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy. He will receive the prize in private, with no media present.

The decision in October to name the American singer-songwriter as the award’s recipient was controversial at the time, with novelists Will Self and Hari Kunzru criticising the choice.

Since then, it has turned into an ongoing saga centred around Dylan’s own diffident response to the accolade. He took two weeks to officially acknowledge the prize, during which time the Academy called him “impolite and arrogant”. Dylan also failed to attend the December ceremony in his honour, citing vague “other commitments” and sending Patti Smith along to perform in his stead.