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October 14, 2016 at 15h08By Camille BAS-WOHLERT
Bob Dylan never ceases to surprise: winner of the Nobel prize in literature for more than 24 hours, a choice that surprised, the singer and american composer had still not spoken Friday with the Swedish Academy which awarded him with the award.
“The Academy has spoken with the agent of Dylan and also the manager of his tour”, told AFP his chancellor, Odd Zschiedrich. But no way to have a direct conversation with the singer, who has not said a word about his prize during a concert Thursday night in Las Vegas.
According to Mr. Zschiedrich, the situation is not totally unusual. “It happened several times, even in modern times, of not being able to speak immediately to the winner”, he says.
But the silence of the star could be embarrassing to the Academy who must defend a bold and controversial.
“assign Him the Nobel for literature, it is distressing (…) I find that the Swedish Academy is ridicules,” said the French novelist Pierre Assouline, a writer, a member of the académie Goncourt.
Traditionally discreet, Bob Dylan is the first songwriter to get the reward, burning the politeness favourite of the literary circles such as Salman Rushdie, Adonis, or Ngugi wa Thiong’o.
according To the Washington Post, who has contacted friends, “Dylan remained silent throughout the day [Thursday] about his reward”. One of his friends, the singer Bob Neuwirth, told the daily american that he “could never even make acknowledgements”.
his real name is Robert Allen Zimmerman, he is, at 75 years of age, one of the singers-authors-composers most influential in music history, in the same way that the tandem Lennon-McCartney of the Beatles. But he seems to be allergic to social obligations.
- Character-difficult -
“My stuff, it was the songs, you know. This was not the sermons,” he said in a rare interview in 2004 with the american channel CBS. “If you examine the songs, I don’t think you will find anything that makes me a spokesperson for that whatsoever.”
In its tours recent, the artist often puts a point of honor to be unpleasant: he has never a word for his audience, cares little whether one sees it well on stage, and only play very rarely his greatest success.
It does not prevent to play to sold-out. And Thursday night in Las Vegas, he has not changed his habits. Almost no titles to the mythical, not a single photo is allowed, not even a “Hello Vegas!”. He has chained the pieces as if nothing had happened.
The Swedish Academy has already had to deal with other winners from the difficult character.
In 1964, the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre had refused the Nobel prize for literature, announcing its decision as soon as he had heard the news. He had not obtained the 273.000 crowns attached at the time of the award.
In 1970, the Academy, and the Soviet Alexander Solzhenitsyn had not managed to agree on the terms and conditions of an award ceremony in Moscow, the prize-winner refusing to leave the USSR for fear they would not be able to return there. He had to wait four years for it to come to Stockholm.
In 2004, the novelist austrian Elfriede Jelinek had decided not to come to Stockholm because of her “social phobia”. The prize had been awarded to Vienna a week after the other.
The prize winners are invited each year on December 10 in the Swedish capital to receive their award from the hands of the king of Sweden and give a speech at a banquet. The Swedish Academy is not yet clear whether Bob Dylan has the intention to come.
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