No response yet from Bob Dylan to Nobel Academy on award

WASHINGTON, Oct. 18 (UPI) -- Bob Dylan may know he's won the Nobel Prize for literature but he hasn't told anybody, shared a thought about it on stage or responded to the group granting him the honor.

The Swedish Academy, which expects to present him the award later this year, has not heard back from Dylan himself and plans to wait and see what happens -- be it respond to them or at least show up to receive the prize December 10 in Stockholm.

"Right now we are doing nothing," said Sara Danius, permanent secretary for the academy. "I have called and sent emails to his closest collaborator and received very friendly replies. For now, that is certainly enough."

Dylan performed the night of the announcement in Las Vegas and then Saturday night at the Desert Trip festival in California, making no mention of the award during either show.

While some have speculated the only difference between his set at the first weekend of Desert Trip and Saturday -- a cover of the Cy Coleman and Joseph McCarthy song "Why Try to Change Me Now?" -- could be a reference of some sort, there's no way to know. Mick Jagger, on the other hand, noted during the Rolling Stones' set that they'd never shared the stage with a Nobel winner before.

The decision to give Dylan the Nobel Prize in literature for "creating new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition" has been controversial since its announcement on October 13, with some questioning whether a songwriter deserves it.

Songwriter Leonard Cohen said Thursday that giving Dylan the award was "like pinning a medal on Mount Everest for being the highest mountain," and the writer Danniel Schoonebeck suggested he turn the award down as Jean-Paul Sartre did in 1964.

Danius was hopeful Dylan would turn up regardless, saying she was not worried.

"If he doesn't want to come, he won't come," Danius said. "It will be a big party in any case and the honor belongs to him."