Bob Dylan, who was awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize for literature but won’t be attending the prize ceremony, likely will travel to Stockholm next year and might give his Nobel Lecture then, the Swedish Academy said on Friday.
Dylan will likely give a concert in the Swedish capital, offering “a perfect opportunity to deliver his lecture,” the academy said. The Swedish Academy awards the Nobel Prize for literature.
Sara Danius, the organisation’s permanent secretary, told Swedish public radio on Friday that the Nobel Foundation’s rules for laureate lectures are “flexible”. Dylan can deliver his as “a written speech, a spontaneous discourse, a film,” or another format of his choosing, Danius said.
In 2004, Austrian playwright and Nobel literature prize winner Elfriede Jelinek stayed home because of social phobia. Her lecture was pre-recorded, and shown on video in Stockholm.
Dylan has said he cannot attend the December 10 prize ceremony, pleading other commitments.
The 75-year-old American singer-songwriter was awarded the prize on October 13 “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.”
The Academy said in a statement it had “decided not to organise an alternative plan” for his lecture.
The laureate lectures must be held within six months from the December 10 ceremonies, on a subject related to the topic of the prizes.
Normally, they occur during the week leading up to the award ceremony. However, several recipients have delivered the lectures after the fact.
Former political prisoner and now the de facto leader of Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi, delivered hers 21 years after being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1991.
Peace prize recipient Lech Walesa, the Polish dissident and leader of the Solidarity union movement, gave his lecture 12 years later while visiting Norway as Poland’s president.
The six Nobel Prizes will be officially conferred upon winners in Stockholm and Oslo next month on the anniversary of award founder Alfred Nobel’s death in 1896.
Details about who would accept the award on Dylan’s behalf were still unclear.
