Last week, 75-year-old harmonica master Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize in literature “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.” His fans rejoiced upon hearing the news. Many others protested. But Dylan himself kept rolling downhill and gathered no award at all, as The Guardian reports Monday that he “has responded with silence.”
Sara Danius, the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy (the group responsible for deciding who will win the Nobel Prize for literature), said:
“Right now we are doing nothing. I have called and sent emails to his closest collaborator and received very friendly replies. For now, that is certainly enough.”
A banquet will be held for Nobel Prize winners in Stockholm on December 10, but Danius doesn’t appear to expect Dylan to attend. “If he doesn’t want to come, he won’t come,” she said. “It will be a big party in any case and the honor belongs to him.”