Bob Dylan is not coming to Stockholm to pick up his Nobel Prize, academy says

Reporting from Copenhagen, Denmark —  Bob Dylan won’t be coming to Stockholm to pick up his 2016 Nobel Prize for literature at the Dec. 10 prize ceremony, the Swedish Academy said Wednesday.

The academy said Dylan informed it that “he wishes he could receive the prize personally, but other commitments make it unfortunately impossible.”

The 75-year-old American singer-songwriter was named winner of the prize on Oct. 13 “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.”

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

The academy said it “respects Bon Dylan’s decision,” and that not traveling to the Swedish capital to personally pick up the prestigious award was “unusual, but not exceptional.”

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

“The award is still theirs, as it now belongs to Bob Dylan,” the academy said. “We are looking forward to Bob Dylan’s Nobel lecture, which he must hold, according to the requirements, within six months” from Dec. 10.

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