Nobel Committee Gives Up On Trying to Contact Bob Dylan

Posted on October 20, 2016

The Nobel Prize committee still hasn't been able to get a hold of singer songwriter Bob Dylan to tell him he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. It seems clear that at least his web team knows, because his website and Facebook page now reflect that he is a Nobel Prize winner.

The Telegraph reports that the committee finally gave up trying to contact him, after all their efforts failed. Sara Danius, the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy told The Telegraph, "I have called and sent emails to his closest collaborator and received very friendly replies. For now, that is certainly enough."

Used to dealing with temperamental artists, scientists and writers, Ms. Danius seems unfazed at Dylan's silence. "If he doesn't want to come, he won't come," she said. "It will be a big party in any case and the honour belongs to him....I am not at all worried. I think he will show up."

The prize will be awarded in December by King Carl Gustaf in Stockholm, Sweden. But it's far from clear what Dylan will do even if he does show up. Award show organizers still shudder over his extemporaneous acceptance speech for the 1963 Tom Paine Award from the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee. Dylan told the crowd he saw some of himself in Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated President John F. Kennedy the year before. He seemed to equate Oswald's actions with free speech. The crowd booed him and he later apologized for the remarks.