Bob Dylan’s Nobel Prize Snub Described as Arrogant

Bob Dylan failed to respond to phone calls from the Swedish Academy after being awarded the Nobel literature prize.

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

The musician was named the shock winner of the prize last week.

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

Bob Dylan 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.

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 Bob 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,” Per Wastberg told Sweden’s Dagens Nyheter newspaper in a separate interview.

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

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

Per 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 honor 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, Doris Lessing did attend the ceremony later that year.