Bob Dylan accepts 2016 Nobel prize finally

The academy, which awards the coveted prize, ended prolonged speculation as to whether the 75-year-old troubadour would use a concert stopover in Stockholm to accept the gold medal and diploma awarded to him back in October.

They were handed to Dylan at a “private ceremony in Stockholm” attended by 12 academy members, Sara Danius, the academy’s permanent secretary on Saturday, said in a blog post. “Spirits were high. Champagne was had,” Danius confided. “Quite a bit of time was spent looking closely at the gold medal, in particular the beautifully crafted back, an image of a young man sitting under a laurel tree who listens to the Muse,” she added. 

“Taken from Virgil’s Aeneid, the inscription reads, ‘Inventas vitam iuvat excoluisse per artes,’ loosely translated as ‘And they who bettered life on earth by their newly found mastery’.”

The first songwriter to receive the prestigious award, Dylan joins a celebrated group of laureates including Thomas Mann, Samuel Beckett, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Doris Lessing. The meeting took place at a secret location ahead of Dylan’s first concert in Stockholm, the first stop on a long-planned European tour for his latest album of cover songs, Triplicate. His second concert is on due Sunday. Dylan had not been expected to deliver his traditional Nobel lecture at the meeting, the only requirement to receive the eight million kronor that comes with the prize.He has until June 10 to provide his lecture, which could be anything from a short speech to a performance, a video broadcast or even a song. Failing that, he risks losing the prize money. 

Dylan was honoured “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition,” the Nobel committee said when the award was announced last October. His long list of hits, ranging over decades, began in the early Sixties. He penned hundreds of songs in just a few years, an astonishing flurry that included Blowin’ In The Wind, Hurricane and Mr. Tambourine Man. 

“Not once have I ever had the time to ask myself, ‘Are my songs literature?’” Dylan said in a thank-you speech read out by the US ambassador to Sweden during Nobel ceremony in Stockholm.