Singer to accept prize in ‘small and intimate’ Stockholm setting having turned down invitation to official ceremony last year

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Bob Dylan, it seems, is not a man to be rushed. Almost five months after he was named the winner of the Nobel prize for literature, the singer will finally accept the award when he travels to Sweden this weekend.

His trip brings to a close a long-running saga that began in October when Dylan was named the winner for “having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition”. For weeks after, the singer refused to publicly acknowledge the honour or even answer the phone calls from the Swedish Nobel academy.

The 75-year-old eventually told an interviewer that being given the Nobel was “amazing, incredible. Whoever dreams about something like that?”



He did not attend December’s prizegiving, but in a speech read out by the US ambassador to Sweden said he was stunned and surprised when he was told he had won because he had never stopped to consider whether his songs were literature.

“If someone had ever told me that I had the slightest chance of winning the Nobel prize, I would have to think that I’d have about the same odds as standing on the moon,” Dylan wrote.

Patti Smith also performed a specially arranged version of his beloved song A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.

Dylan’s touring schedule had long been due to bring him to Sweden this weekend, but until Wednesday he had remained silent over whether he would be picking up his SEK8m (€839,000, £726,000) winnings and delivering his Nobel lecture, which he must do by 10 June if he wants to keep the money.

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Sara Danius, the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, said recently: “As far as the Swedish Academy is concerned, it is, in any event, clear that the 2016 Nobel prize laureate in literature is Bob Dylan and no one else.”

But in a new blog posted on Wednesday, Danius wrote: “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.”

She said the ceremony would be “small and intimate” with no media present, adding: “Only Bob Dylan and members of the academy will attend, all according to Dylan’s wishes.”

Dylan will also send the Nobel academy a taped version of his lecture, rather than giving it in person. Danius said that this occurred “now and again”, and last happened with Alice Munro in 2013.

She added that the Nobel academy were all looking forward to Dylan’s concerts in Stockholm and had a group outing planned to “show up at one of the performances”.



