It’s no secret Malibu is a magnet for high-achieving talent in the entertainment industry. From Emmys to Oscars, it feels like you can’t throw a rock without hitting someone with a statue on his or her mantle. But now, an even higher prize is coming home to our small town on the beach.
Longtime Malibu resident Bob Dylan, 75, received a rare honor last week when the Nobel Committee selected him to receive the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature — making him one of only two recipients to receive the prestigious award for songwriting, rather than traditional poetry or prose.
Dylan has been a Pt. Dume resident of Malibu for many years and his children were raised here. There are neighborhood stories of Dylan showing up at his son’s sports games in Malibu, standing and watching, but generally not speaking to anyone.
Dylan won the award, according to the Nobel Committee, “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.” Dylan’s visionary career spans six decades and his other accolades include Grammy, Academy and Golden Globe awards — not to mention a Presidential Medal of Freedom.
The Nobel Prize in Literature, widely considered to be the most prestigious prize offered in literature, was founded in 1901 at the bequest of Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite.
Though news broke Thursday, Oct. 13, that Dylan was to take home the prize, according to members of the Swedish Academy (that awards the prize), he has not been quick to accept.
“We have stopped trying — we said everything we needed to his manager and friend, he knows about us being eager having confirmation from him, but we haven’t heard anything back,” Odd Zschiedrich, the administrative director of the Swedish Academy, told CNN on Tuesday.
Other Swedish Academy members gave his silence a more positive spin.
Sara Danius, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, reportedly told Swedish Radio Dylan’s team has been in contact.
“I have called and emailed to this associate and received a very friendly response,” Danius said in a statement to the radio station. “Right now, it is enough.”
Dylan is currently touring, which may account for his radio silence, but should he decline the award, he would join famous playwright and novelist John-Paul Sartre, who refused the accolade in 1964. According to a statement from Sartre at the time, his reasoning was both “personal and objective,” though he sought not to decline the award but rather to urge the Swedish Academy to not consider him — his letter did not arrive in time.
Should he accept, Dylan would join the ranks of such laureates as Gabriel García Márquez, Pablo Neruda, Samuel Beckett and Toni Morrison.
Though it was widely reported Dylan was the first songwriter to receive the honor, it was later pointed out that 1913 winner Rabindranath Tagore, a Bengali singer and songwriter, won that accolade over 100 years before Dylan.
Dylan has constantly toured since the 1960s, has sold over 100 million records and has amassed a fortune estimated at $180 million. In 2016 alone, it is estimated that he has already played 45 concert dates.