Singer-songwriter’s failure to respond to phone calls from the Swedish Academy after being awarded the Nobel literature prize ‘unprecedented’

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

A prominent member of the academy that awards the Nobel literature prize has described this year’s laureate, Bob Dylan, as arrogant, citing his total silence since the award was announced last week.



The US singer-songwriter has not responded to repeated phone calls from the Swedish Academy, nor reacted in any way in public to the news.

Fascinating, infuriating, enduring: Bob Dylan deserves his Nobel prize Read more

“It’s impolite and arrogant,” said the academy member, Swedish writer Per Wastberg, in comments aired on SVT public television.

On the evening of 13 October, the day the literature prize winner was announced, Dylan played a concert in Las Vegas during which he made no comment at all to his fans.

He ended the concert with a version of the Frank Sinatra hit “Why Try To Change Me Now?”, taken to be a nod towards his longstanding aversion to the media.

Every 10 December Nobel prize winners are invited to Stockholm to receive their awards from King Carl XVI Gustaf and give a speech during a banquet.

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The academy still does not know if Dylan plans to come.

“This is an unprecedented situation,” Wastberg said.

Bob Dylan removes mention of Nobel prize from website Read more

Anders Barany, a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, recalled that Albert Einstein snubbed the academy after being awarded the physics prize in 1921.

In 1964 French writer and philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre refused the literature prize outright.

Other contenders for this year’s prize included Salman Rushdie, Syrian poet Adonis and Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o.</s>Image copyright EPA

Bob Dylan's failure to acknowledge his Nobel Prize in literature is "impolite and arrogant", according to a member of the body that awards it.

The 75-year-old singer was named the shock winner of the prize last week.

But all efforts by the Swedish Academy to contact him have failed, and he has not acknowledged the win in public.

Academy member Per Wastberg told Swedish television: "He is who he is," adding that there was little surprise Dylan had ignored the news.

"We were aware that he can be difficult and that he does not like appearances when he stands alone on the stage," he told Sweden's Dagens Nyheter newspaper in a separate interview.

A reference to the prize was removed from Dylan's website last week.

It is still not known if he will travel to Stockholm to receive the prize on 10 December. If he does not, a ceremony marking his career will go ahead as planned, Mr Wastberg said.

Mr Wastberg called the snub "unprecedented", but one person has previously rejected the Nobel Prize in Literature - French author and philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre in 1964.

And one other recipient was distinctly underwhelmed by the honour conferred upon her by the Swedish Academy.

On learning she had won the prize in 2007, having returned from doing her shopping, the author Doris Lessing responded: "Oh Christ."

However, she did attend the ceremony later that year.</s>A member of the Swedish Academy that awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature to Bob Dylan says the singer-songwriter’s silence since receiving the honour is “impolite and arrogant”.

Per Wastberg said Dylan’s lack of reaction was predictable but disrespectful. He was quoted telling a Swedish newspaper yesterday: “One can say that it is impolite and arrogant. He is who he is.”

Wastberg said the academy still hopes to communicate with the 75-year-old, whose award credits him with creating “new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition”. The prize will be officially conferred on 10 December in Stockholm.</s>STOCKHOLM (AP) — A member of the Swedish Academy that awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in literature to Bob Dylan says the U.S. singer-songwriter’s silence since receiving the honor is “impolite and arrogant.”

Per Wastberg said Dylan’s lack of reaction was predictable but disrespectful nonetheless. He was quoted telling the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter in Saturday’s edition: “One can say that it is impolite and arrogant. He is who he is.”

Wastberg said the academy still hopes to communicate with the 75-year-old artist, whose award credits him with creating “new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.”

The academy says it has failed to reach Dylan since the award announcement Oct. 13. It was mentioned on Dylan’s official Twitter and Facebook accounts.

The prize will be officially conferred Dec. 10 in Stockholm.</s>Per Wastberg says the singer-songwriter’s lack of response to numerous phone calls is “impolite”

A prominent member of the academy which awards the Nobel literature prize has slammed this year’s laureate Bob Dylan as “arrogant”, citing his total silence since the award was announced last week.

The U.S. singer-songwriter has not responded to repeated phone calls from the Swedish Academy, nor reacted in any way in public to the news.

“It’s impolite and arrogant,” said the academy member, Swedish writer Per Wastberg, in comments aired on SVT public television.

On the evening of October 13, the day the literature prize winner was announced, Dylan played a concert in Las Vegas during which he just sang his songs and made no comment at all to his fans.

He ended the concert with a version of the Frank Sinatra hit “Why Try To Change Me Now?”, taken to be a nod towards his long-standing aversion to the media.

Ceremony on Dec. 10

 

 Every December 10, Nobel prize winners are invited to Stockholm to receive their awards from King Carl XVI Gustaf and give a speech during a banquet. The Swedish Academy still does not know if Mr. Dylan plans to come. Anders Barany, a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, recalled that Albert Einstein snubbed the academy after being awarded the physics prize in 1921.

In 1964, French writer and philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre refused the literature prize outright.</s>COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — A member of the Swedish Academy that awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in literature to Bob Dylan says the American singer-songwriter’s silence since receiving the honor is “impolite and arrogant.”

Per Wastberg said Dylan’s lack of reaction to the honor the academy bestowed on him last week was predictable, but disrespectful nonetheless.

“One can say that it is impolite and arrogant. He is who he is,” Wastberg was quoted as saying in Saturday’s edition of the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter.

Wastberg said the academy still hopes to communicate with the 75-year-old artist, whose Nobel credits him with creating “new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.”

“We have agreed not to lift a finger. The ball lies entirely on his half,” Wastberg told the newspaper. “You can speculate as much as you want but we don’t.” He was not immediately available for comments.

The academy said it has failed to reach the tight-lipped laureate since he became the first musician in the Nobel’s 115-year history to win the prize in literature. The award was mentioned on Dylan’s official Twitter and Facebook accounts.

The literature prize and five other Nobel Prizes will be officially conferred in Stockholm on Dec. 10, the anniversary of award founder Alfred Nobel’s death in 1896.

Literature laureates have skipped the ceremony before. In 2004, Austrian playwright and novelist Elfriede Jelinek stayed home, citing a social phobia.

Harold Pinter and Alice Munro missed the ceremony for health reasons in 2005 and 2013, respectively.

Only two people have declined a Nobel Prize in literature. Boris Pasternak did so under pressure from Soviet authorities in 1958 and Jean-Paul Sartre, who declined all official honors, turned it down in 1964.

Although Dylan has not commented publicly on winning the Nobel, privacy and the price of fame have been themes in his music.

It’s easy to read a response to Wastberg’s remarks in the 1981 song, “The Groom’s Still Waiting at The Altar.”

“Try to be pure at heart, they arrest you for robbery,” part of the lyrics say. “Mistake your shyness for aloofness, your silence for snobbery.”

Each of this year’s Nobel Prizes is worth 8 million Swedish kronor, or about $930,000.</s>Singer-songwriter Bob Dylan’s continued silence over his Nobel honour has been denounced as “impolite and arrogant” by one of the members of the Swedish Academy that awarded him the prize.

Per Wastberg said Dylan’s lack of reaction to the 2016 Nobel Prize in literature was predictable but still disrespectful.

He told the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter in Saturday’s edition: “One can say that it is impolite and arrogant. He is who he is.”

Mr Wastberg said the academy still hopes to communicate with the 75-year-old artist, whose award credits him with creating “new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition”.

The academy says it has failed to reach Dylan since the award announcement on October 13. It was mentioned on Dylan’s official Twitter and Facebook accounts.

The prize will be officially conferred on December 10th in Stockholm.</s>STOCKHOLM: A prominent member of the academy which awards the Nobel literature prize slammed this year’s laureate Bob Dylan as arrogant on Friday, citing his total silence since the award was announced last week.

The US singer-songwriter has not responded to repeated phone calls from the Swedish Academy, nor reacted in any way in public to the news.

“It’s impolite and arrogant,” said the academy member, Swedish writer Per Wastberg, in comments aired on SVT public television.

On the evening of October 13, the day the literature prize winner was announced, Dylan played a concert in Las Vegas during which he just sang his songs and made no comment at all to his fans.

He ended the concert with a version of the Frank Sinatra hit “Why Try To Change Me Now?”, taken to be a nod towards his longstanding aversion to the media.

Every December 10, Nobel prize winners are invited to Stockholm to receive their awards from King Carl XVI Gustaf and give a speech during a banquet.

The Swedish Academy still does not know if Dylan plans to come.

“This is an unprecedented situation,” said Wastberg.

Anders Barany, a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, recalled that Albert Einstein snubbed the academy after being awarded the physics prize in 1921.

In 1964 French writer and philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre refused the literature prize outright.

Dylan, 75, whose lyrics have influenced generations of fans, is the first songwriter to win the literature prize.

Other contenders for this year’s prize included Salman Rushdie, Syrian poet Adonis and Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o. – AFP</s>(JTA) — The fallout from Bob Dylan’s Nobel Prize in Literature has taken a strange turn: The Jewish folk singer’s website has taken down its only brief mention of the award.

Dylan has not acknowledged the award at any of his performances in the week since the Nobel committee’s Oct. 13 announcement, but his website made one allusion to it this week on a page promoting a new collection of his lyrics, “The Lyrics: 1961: 2012.” The page on bobdylan.com simply called him the “winner of the Nobel Prize in literature.”

As of Friday morning, the reference has been erased without explanation.

The Swedish Academy has tried and failed multiple times to contact Dylan through close associates of his since the award announcement. Sara Danius, the Nobel academy’s secretary, told Swedish radio on Monday that the academy has given up attempting to contact him and could not confirm whether he would attend the award ceremony in Stockholm on Nov. 10.

Numerous publications have noted that celebrities often do not control the content of their public websites, so it is conceivable that Dylan had no input about the award’s mention on his site.

Dylan, 75, is the first artist seen primarily as a songwriter to win the award, a fact that has stirred a divisive debate in literary circles. Some writers, such as the poets Amy King and Danniel Schoonebeek, have called for him to turn down the award.</s>“By the time he was 23, Bob’s voice, with its weight, its unique, gravelly power was redefining not just what music sounded like, but the message it carried and how it made people feel. Today, everybody from Bruce Springsteen to U2 owes Bob a debt of gratitude” (Barack Obama).

“Bob Dylan is a genius, and for his genius, he’s been rewarded in every way; with fame, money, acclaim. He deserves all of it, but he doesn’t deserve the Nobel…The objection here hinges in the definition of the word ‘literature.’ You wouldn’t give the literary prize to an economist or a political saint. You shouldn’t give it to Bob Dylan (Stephen Metcalf).

BOB DYLAN AND THE FACE OF MYSTERY

The Swedish Academy, which is responsible for selecting Nobel Laureates in Literature, this year, 2016, has nominated Bob Dylan, an American singer, writer, songwriter and musician whose music genres run from folk, rock, gospel, and blues to country, for the prestigious award with the following citation for his:

“Having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.”

Already the world of literature is abuzz with a mixture of confusion, excitement, and utter shock.

The obvious question then becomes:

Why did the Swedish Academy ignore such great writers from Leo Tolstoy, Chinua Achebe, Arthur Miller, perennial nominee Nuruddin Farah, Mark Twain, Jorge L. Borges, Robert Frost, Henry James, Marcel Proust, James Joyce, Primo Levi, Philip Roth, George Orwell, Vladimir Nabokov, Wystan H. Auden, and Virginia Woolf to John Updike?

This question is sometimes difficult to answer as information on possible answers is shrouded in mystery in accordance with regulations set forth in motion by the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

This information is, however, declassified fifty years following the prestigious prize being awarded to a selected nominee.

A NECESSARY DIVERSION: SOME IMPORTANT POINTS TO TAKE NOTE OF

Meanwhile, others have speculated that the Swedish Academy is too Eurocentric when it never considered Chinua Achebe for the Prize.

But this speculation flies in the face of the Prize being given to Toni Morrison, Wole Soyinka, and Derek Walcott.

We do know for a fact that Henry Louis Gates, Jr. may have played some role in Soyinka’s nomination (a high-profile American academic who is a colleague of both Gates and Soyinka confided in us).

Significantly, Soyinka has admitted in an interview that his being awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature may explain some of the tensions between him and Achebe.

Finally, Nellie Yvonne McKay’s text “Critical Essays on Toni Morrison” brought the work of Toni Morrison to the attention of the Swedish Academy.

It was actually the Jamaican-American woman of letters who was first offered the position Gates occupies now at Harvard University, a position she turned down and instead asked that it be given to Gates. Gates would later assemble a world-class faculty including Wole Soyinka, he and Appiah’s professor and academic advisor at Cambridge University, Kwame Anthony Appiah, the brilliant Ghanaian writer, historian and editor Emmanuel Acheampong, Cornel West among others.

Acheampong played an instrumental role in creating the Department of African/African-American Studies. The six-volume “Dictionary of African Biography” is edited by him and Gates. Gates co-authored “The Anthology of African American Literature” and “The Future of the Race” with Nellie and West respectively, and with Appiah edited “The Dictionary of Global Culture” and the first edition of “Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience” (see Molefi Kete Asante’s “Microsoft Encarta Africana Edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Anthony Appiah” for his critique of this latter volume at www.asante.net).

And, last but not least, it was Soyinka who advised Gates to read literature if he wanted to impact an impact in race relations. His important work “The Signifying Monkey” would revolve around Soyinka’s interpretation of Yoruba culture, cosmology-cosmogony, art, philosophy, history among other useful topics.

Lastly, Gates then built the department around the progressive ideals and philosophy of America’s pre-eminent urban sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois, a literary giant whose intellectual, moral and social philosophy Appiah tried to deconstruct in his controversial work, “In My Father’s House” (Read: W.E.B. Du Bois at the Hutchins Center). In this book Appiah was also highly critical of Soyinka, his mentor! Also in the late 1990s, for instance, Gates campaigned/lobbied for Du Bois to be named Time Magazine’s Man of the Century!

BOB DYLAN AND THE SILENT CONTROVERSY

Essentially, Dylan was not the first musician to be nominated for the prestigious prize. The first was Rabindranath Tagore, a Bengali musician, poet, painter, writer, film composer, and visual artist. The Swedish Academy awarded him the 1913 Nobel Prize in Literature (citation):

“Because of his profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse, by which, with consummate skill, he has made his poetic thought, expressed in his own English words, a part of the literature of the West.”

Then also, Alex Lubet, Morse Alumni Distinguished Teaching Professor of Music and Adjunct Professor of American Studies, University of Minnesota, writes of Tagore:

“The Nobel website states that Tagore, though he wrote in many genres, was principally a poet who published more than 50 volumes of verse, as well as plays, short stories, and novels. Tagore’s music isn’t mentioned until the last sentence, which says that the artist ‘also left… songs for which he wrote the music himself,’ as if this much-loved body of work was no more than an afterthought.

“But with over 2,000 songs to his name, Tagore’s output of music alone is extremely impressive. Many continue to be used in films, while three of his songs were chosen as national anthems by India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, an unparalleled achievement.

But Tagore was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature, not for the kind of recognition the Swedish Academy has extended Dylan, although Prof. Lubet draws some striking parallels between the careers of both men.

That said, Prof. Lubet also cites an unsubstantiated rumor that claims Dylan was “first nominated in 1996” for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

This implies that the Swedish Academy may have been wrestling with the idea of awarding the Nobel Prize in Literature to Dylan.

However, we cannot make much of this speculation without the benefit of verifiable supporting evidence.

It is nevertheless interesting to see how some experts are already drawing some parallels between

Dylan’s musical language and the language of Homer’s epic poetry/poetic narrative (see his “Odyssey” and “Iliad”).

To make the spice up the controversy, others have also gone as far saying the Greek lyric poet Sappho, one of the so-called Nine (Melic) Poets would have endorsed the Swedish Academy for awarding Dylan the prestigious prize were she alive today.

It is interesting knowing that two Homer scholars, Albert Lord and Milman Parry, demonstrated that the epic poetry of Homer was based on or originated in the oral traditions (or oral lore) of his Greek community, which also means, among other extrapolations, that what later came to be known as “Iliad” and “Odyssey” were, in fact, in oral forms before were collected in book forms.

There have also been subtle references to the lyric poetry of Ancient Greece. At least not everyone agrees with this characterization (Scott Timberg):

“And most of Dylan’s lyrics don’t stand up terribly well as poetry…Slate’s Stephen Metcalf makes a well-argued case, which I am at least partially sympathetic to, that his songs aren’t really poetry at all.”

The above notwithstanding, so far, we have not come to any information where the poetic language of Dylan’s music is compared to Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott’s three-hundred-page-plus “Omeros (1990).”

Is this prestigious recognition bestowed on Dylan, a raconteur and rhapsodist, on the basis of what the Ugandan scholar, literary theorist, and linguist Pio Zirimu called “orature” (“oral literature”)? Thus far, no controversy has greeted this announcement as it did in the case of President Obama, Henry Kissinger, Wangari Maathai, or Yasser Arafat!

Whatever the reasons for Dylan’s nomination which we might get to know in fifty years from now (2066) if the Norwegian Nobel Committee does not change or revise its regulations on its classified archives/database, the fact still remains that he is still the 2016 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Let us remember that thirty years after Soyinka had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, the debates still continues in parts of the African world, unabated, why it did not go to Achebe instead, or why Achebe was not awarded one. There were even calls for Soyinka to recommend the Nobel Prize in Literature for his colleague in 2013! Here is Soyinka’s stinging riposte to the callers:

“Let us quit this indecent exercise of fatuous plaints, including raising hopes, even now, with talk of 'posthumous' conferment, when you know damned well that the Nobel committee does not indulge in such tradition. It has gone beyond 'sickening.' It is obscene and irreverent. It desecrates memory.

“This conduct is gross disservice to Chinua Achebe and disrespectful of the life-engrossing occupation known as literature. How did creative valuation descend to such banality? Do these people know what they're doing—they are inscribing Chinua's epitaph in the negative mode of thwarted expectations. I find that disgusting.”

“…What the literary enterprise is about? Was it the Nobel that spurred a young writer, stung by Eurocentric portrayal of African reality, to put pen to paper and produce ‘Things Fall Apart’?

“Chinua is entitled to better than being escorted to his grave with that monotonous, hypocritical aria of deprivation's lament, orchestrated by those who, as we say in my part of the world, 'dye their mourning weeds a deeper indigo than those of the bereaved'. He deserves his peace. Me too! And right now, not posthumously."

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

“These songs of mine, they’re like mystery plays, the kind that Shakespeare saw when he was growing up. I think you could trace what I do back that far. They were on the fringes then, and I think they’re on the fringes now. And they sound like they’ve been on the hard ground” (Bob Dylan).

Those of our writers who are aiming for the Nobel Prize in Literature should know henceforth that “literature” means many things to the Swedish Academy. It means more than what one writes, to encompass what and how one writes what one sings (“sheet music”). Just like our writers, our musicians must also take note or pay attention to this new definition of “literature.”

Ironically, unlike Bob Dylan, Wole Soyinka, a musician and guitarist in his own right, fortunately won the prestigious prize not for his maverick musicianship but for his complex narrative literature, drama specifically. The irony, if we should add, is that the Swedish Academy is not even getting any response from Dylan whether or not he is going to formally accept the award.

Let us not ignore the fact that Dylan is a writer as well. In fact his partially flavored stream-of-consciousness novel, “Tarantula,” reminds us of the works of Ben Okri, Salman Rushdie, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and a memoir “Chronicles: Volume 1”!

Yes, some of us have a special faiblesse for him given his profound lyrical feuilleton. That is, those of us who have and been listening to his music know he is a great songwriter with a powerful gravelly voice known for its strong semblance of an eloquent language of lyric poetry.

REFERENCES

Lisa Respers France. (October 18, 2016) “Nobel Prize Has Stopped Knock, Knock, Knocking On Bob Dylan’s Door.” CNN Entertainment. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/18/entertainment/bob-dylan-noble-prize-trnd/

David Remnick. (October 13, 2016). “Let’s Celebrate the Bob Dylan Nobel Win.” The New Yorker. Retrieved from http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/lets-celebrate-the-bob-dylan-nobel-win

The Nobel Prize in Literature 1913 (Rabindranath Tagore). Retrieved from https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1913/

Alex Lubet. (October 16, 2016). “Tagore, Not Dylan: The first lyricist to Win the Nobel Prize for Literature Was Actually Indian.” Retrieved from http://qz.com/810668/rabindranath-tagore-not-bob-dylan-the-first-lyricist-to-win-the-nobel-prize-for-literature-was-actually-indian/

Alison Flood. (May 20, 2013). “Calls for Chinua Achebe Nobel Prize 'Obscene,' Says Wole Soyinka.” Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/may/20/chinua-achebe-nobel-prize-wole-soyinka

Scott Timberg. (October 13, 2016) “Bob Dylan deserves the Nobel Prize: He Brought Sophistication To The Language of Popular Music Like No One Else.” Retrieved from http://www.salon.com/2016/10/13/dylan-deserves-the-nobel-prize-he-brought-sophistication-to-the-language-of-popular-music-like-no-one-else/

Stephen Metcalf. (October 13, 2016). “Bob Dylan Is a Genius of Almost Unparalleled Influence, but He Shouldn’t Have Gotten the Nobel.” Retrieved from http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2016/10/13/why_bob_dylan_shouldn_t_have_gotten_the_nobel_prize_for_literature.html

Grant Trimboli. “Bob Dylan Presented with Medal of Freedom.” (May 30, 2012). Retrieved from http://underthegunreview.net/2012/05/30/bob-dylan-presented-with-medal-of-freedom/
Per Wästberg, a member of the Swedish Academy, says that songwriter and artist Bob Dylan has not yet indicated whether he intends to accept the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature.