A lot of media uproar wreaked havoc when the Nobel Prize Committee declared Bob Dylan as the winner of the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature award and especially when Bob Dylan remained absent from the award-night, quoting “pre-existing commitments”.
In the words of Bob Dylan, “Not once have I ever had the time to ask myself, ‘Are my songs literature?’” He later apologized for not attending the ceremony and was reported saying, “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.”
Last Saturday on April 1, Bob Dylan finally accepted the Nobel Prize for literature by the Swedish Academy in a private ceremony without any media presence. The private ceremony was held in Stockholm before Dylan’s sold-out concert at the Waterfront concert house. The members of the Swedish Academy reportedly attended his concert after presenting him with the award. Sara Danius, secretary of the Swedish Academy, said, “Spirits were high. Champagne was had. Quite a bit of time was spent looking closely at the gold medal.”
Now, the Nobel Prize acceptance speech is the only requirement to receive the prize money of 8 Million Kronas ($927,740) and Bob Dylan has until June 10 to deliver the lecture or he shall forfeit the prize money. According to Sara Danius, they are expecting a taped version of the acceptance speech by Dylan.
The Nobel Prize for literature, which is associated with poets and novelists, has been awarded to literature laureates like Rudyard Kipling, WB Yeats, Rabindra Nath Tagore, TS Eliot, Alburt Camus, Samuel Beckett and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The Academy awarded Bob Dylan, “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition”.