Ever since the world learned that Bob Dylan had won this year's Nobel Prize for Literature, Dylan has been weird about the award, staying cagey and refusing to acknowledge it for weeks before finally announcing that he would not attend the ceremony where the Swedish Academy hands out the awards. (He also skipped a White House event for Nobel winners.) Dylan has, however, written a speech for the Nobel Prize banquet. He just won't be around to read it.
As Pitchfork points out, the Swedish Academy announced on Twitter this morning that someone else would read a speech that Dylan has prepared for the banquet:
Bob Dylan (#NobelPrize in Literature 2016) has provided a speech which will be read at the Nobel banquet in Stockholm December 10.
— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) December 5, 2016
The Nobel Prize comes with about $900,000 in cash. To collect it, a Nobel winner must give a Nobel Lecture sometime between the 12/10 banquet and next June. There's no word, as of yet, on whether this pre-written speech will count as Dylan's Nobel Lecture.
UPDATE: Per Reuters, Patti Smith will perform Dylan's "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" at the Nobel ceremony, and Swedish Academy member Horace Engdahl will read Dylan's speech.
