(JTA) — The fallout from Bob Dylan’s Nobel Prize in Literature has taken a strange turn: The Jewish folk singer’s website has taken down its only brief mention of the award.
Dylan has not acknowledged the award at any of his performances in the week since the Nobel committee’s Oct. 13 announcement, but his website made one allusion to it this week on a page promoting a new collection of his lyrics, “The Lyrics: 1961: 2012.” The page on bobdylan.com simply called him the “winner of the Nobel Prize in literature.”
As of Friday morning, the reference has been erased without explanation.
The Swedish Academy has tried and failed multiple times to contact Dylan through close associates of his since the award announcement. Sara Danius, the Nobel academy’s secretary, told Swedish radio on Monday that the academy has given up attempting to contact him and could not confirm whether he would attend the award ceremony in Stockholm on Nov. 10.
Numerous publications have noted that celebrities often do not control the content of their public websites, so it is conceivable that Dylan had no input about the award’s mention on his site.
Dylan, 75, is the first artist seen primarily as a songwriter to win the award, a fact that has stirred a divisive debate in literary circles. Some writers, such as the poets Amy King and Danniel Schoonebeek, have called for him to turn down the award.
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