American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan has finally accepted the Nobel Prize for literature awarded earlier this month, the Swedish Academy said in a statement published Friday.

"If I accept the prize? Of course," Dylan told Sara Danius, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, over the phone.

"The news about the Nobel Prize left me speechless," he added. "I appreciate the honor so much."

However, the Nobel Foundation said Dylan had yet to formally confirm his attendance at the award-granting ceremony in December.

"It has not yet been decided if Bob Dylan will attend any events during the Nobel Week in Stockholm," the foundation said, adding that it would share the information "as soon as it is available."

Weeks of silence

On October 13, the academy announced that Dylan won the Nobel Prize in literature "for having created new poetic expressions with the great American song tradition."

The notoriously media-shy artist did not respond to the announcement for weeks, despite multiple attempts by Nobel officials to contact him, prompting one of the judges to label Dylan "impolite and arrogant."

But in an interview published Friday, Dylan told the British daily "The Telegraph" that he would "absolutely" show up to the official banquet "if it's at all possible."

(DW)