This weekend, Bob Dylan didn’t attend the Stockholm ceremony honoring him as the winner of the 2016 Nobel Prize in literature. (Patti Smith performed “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” in his place.) Today, the legendary songwriter announced three tour dates in Sweden for spring 2017: Stockholm on April 1 and 2, and Lund on April 9.
The Academy asks all laureates to deliver a lecture within six months of their award, and while these concerts do appear to be timed to that window, we’ve learned nothing in the last two months if we expect Dylan to follow Nobel tradition to the letter. In advance of Saturday’s banquet in Stockholm, Dylan did provide the text of a speech expressing his gratitude and admiration to the committee. His comments were read by the American ambassador to Sweden, but we may yet get a lecture out of the man himself.
Revisit the text of Dylan’s Nobel thank-you here.
