Bob Dylan finally to accept Nobel Prize for Literature this weekend

Bob Dylan will formally accept the Nobel Prize for Literature this weekend after months of speculation about whether this would happen since the musician won it last October.

According to a blog, authored today (29th March) by Nobel spokesperson Sara Danius, permanent secretary at the Swedish Academy, Dylan will meet the organisation this weekend, while he is in Stockholm to give two concerts. During this time the Academy will hand over Dylan’s Nobel diploma and the Nobel medal, and congratulate him on his win.

"The setting will be small and intimate, and no media will be present; only Bob Dylan and members of the Academy will attend, all according to Dylan’s wishes," said Danius.

She added the body "has reason to believe" that a taped version of Dylan's Nobel Lecture - which he is required to give in order not to forfeit the £740,000 in prize money - will be sent "at a later point".

Dylan, who took two weeks to acknowledge his win at all, now has until 10th June 2017 to deliver this lecture, six months from the date of the Nobel Prize ceremony he missed in December due to prior committments, or lose out on the prize payout. Danius shared this stipulation in a blog on Monday (27th March).

She wrote then that no phone calls with Dylan had taken place in recent months, but stressed "as far as the Swedish Academy is concerned, it's clear in any event that the 2016 Nobel laureate in literature is Bob Dylan and no one else."

The last taped Nobel lecture presented was that of Nobel Laureate Alice Munro in 2013.

A speech given on Dylan's behalf in December by the US ambassador in Sweden, Azita Raji, shared the singer's surprise in winning the award. 

"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," he wrote, reported the BBC in December.