Closing Event for LitFestBergen 2026: Dylan’s Many Betrayals

Join us for the final event of LitFestBergen 2026 on a fjord cruise with a talk! Musician and author Pedro Carmona-Alvarez will give a talk about Bob Dylan aboard the book boat Epos, which, weather permitting, will take us on a fjord cruise.

Bob Dylan’s first and most iconic betrayal took place at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965, when he took to the stage with an electric guitar and a noisy rock band behind him. The audience, who considered him to be the poet and spokesperson of the folk movement, naturally felt betrayed. Their booing was not just an expression of disappointment – it was a cry from a generation that believed Dylan belonged to them, that he articulated a vision of a more just society by renewing traditional music in a respectful and reverent way.

He would go on to betray his audience many times. He betrayed politics when he abandoned activism in favour of poetry and absurdism. He betrayed faith when he became religious – and faith again when he abandoned religion. He betrayed the notion of authenticity when he donned mask after mask, and his own audience every time they thought they had understood him. But perhaps it is precisely in these betrayals that his greatness lies. The lecture “Dylan’s Many Betrayals” examines how Dylan has used betrayal as an aesthetic and existential strategy over the course of 60 years. It deals with the relationship between artist and audience, between icon and individual, between expectation and transformation. This talk is a portrait of an artist who never wanted to be anyone’s prophet – but became one nonetheless.

The talk will be held in Norwegian.