Bob Dylan scheduled three concerts in Sweden in April 2017, which would give the singer a chance to collect the Nobel Prize for Literature after his absence at the banquet on Saturday in Stockholm. The winner declined the invitation to the ceremony on December 10 citing other commitments. He sent an acceptance speech in which he expressed his astonishment at seeing his name alongside those of authors such as Rudyard Kipling, Albert Camus and Ernest Hemingway. The Swedish Academy, which expects an acceptance speech, traditionally longer, said he did not know if the musician would use his trip to the concerts scheduled in Stockholm on 1 and 2 April, and 9 in Lund. Wästberg had regarded impolite and arrogant Dylan for his silence after the announcement of the prize, but the permanent secretary of the venerable institution, Sara Danius, had replied that it had obtained very kind responses Singer environment.
The artist's decision not to attend the ceremony was widely discussed in Sweden, where it was interpreted as a repudiation of the Swedish Academy and the Nobel Foundation. Saturday was the US ambassador in Sweden, Azita Raji, in charge of reading the text that Bob Dylan was declared honored. If someone had told me one day that had any chance of winning the Nobel Prize, he thought he would have had as much chance as going to the moon, he said. Nobel Prize winners receive a gold medal, a diploma and a check for eight million kronor (823,000 euros).
