MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Because of “pre-existing commitments”, Dylan will not pick up the Nobel Prize in Stockholm

Dylan had said he would try to attend, but now he says he cannot accept the award in person at the December ceremony in Stockholm.

Bob Dylan says he will not travel to Stockholm to pick up the 2016 Nobel Prize for literature. The Swedish Academy, which gives out the Nobel prizes, says it received a personal letter from Dylan saying he had “pre-existing commitments”. From the very beginning there was a lot of speculation whether Bob Dylan even wanted his Nobel Prize in Literature since it took him more than two weeks to acknowledge that he'd won.

 When Dylan finally acknowledged he wrote to the Swedish Academy that the news left him 'speechless.'

“He told a reporter he would try to attend if at all possible, but now he says he cannot accept the award in person at the December ceremony in Stockholm.

”In a statement, the Swedish Academy says it looks forward to Dylan's Nobel lecture sometime in the next six months. The Academy says that's 'the only requirement.' “

The Nobel committee announced on 13 October that Dylan had won this year's prize, saying he ”has the status of an icon“ and that ”his influence on contemporary music is profound, and he is the object of a steady stream of secondary literature.” But even by late October the committee still hadn't heard from him (although a line on his website did mention the award) and called him “impolite and arrogant.”

After receiving Dylan's letter, the Swedish Academy said: “That laureates decide not to come is unusual, to be sure, but not exceptional. In the recent past, several laureates have, for various reasons, been unable to come to Stockholm to receive the prize, among them Doris Lessing, Harold Pinter, and Elfriede Jelinek. The prize still belongs to them, just as it belongs to Bob Dylan.”

At least one past Nobel laureate — a winner of the 1973 peace prize — rejected the award outright. Le Duc Tho refused the honor because he was to share it with Henry Kissinger, who he contended “had violated the truce” in Vietnam.