Kevin Winter—AFP
Swedish academy says singer-songwriter has appreciated ‘honor’ of Nobel prize for literature.
Bob Dylan has finally accepted his Nobel prize for literature, the Swedish Academy that awards it said on Friday, breaking his silence on the win that he said left him “speechless.”
Asked “if I accept the prize? Of course,” the U.S. singer-songwriter said in a call to the academy this week, around a fortnight after he was named laureate on Oct. 13. “The news about the Nobel Prize left me speechless,” he told the academy’s permanent secretary, Sara Danius. “I appreciate the honor so much.”
Dylan had not responded to repeated phone calls made by the academy following the prize announcement, nor had he made any public statement, prompting one academy member to call him “impolite and arrogant.”
The academy said on Friday that it had not yet been decided yet if Dylan would visit Stockholm to pick up his award.
Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf usually hands out prizes and cheques to all the Nobel winners at a banquet on Dec. 10. Asked in an interview with Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper published late Friday if he would turn up, he said: “Absolutely. If it’s at all possible.”
Dylan told the paper that the award was “amazing, incredible,” saying: “It’s hard to believe.” He added: “Whoever dreams about something like that?”
Asked why he did not respond to the academy’s calls, Dylan said: “Well, I’m right here.” Dylan, whose lyrics have influenced generations of fans, is the first songwriter to win the literature prize.