STOCKHOLM - The committee that awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature to Bob Dylan said on Saturday it was up to the American singer-songwriter whether to attend the prize-giving ceremony later this year or not. The notoriously media-shy Dylan has not yet made any comment on the $900,000 prize, despite repeated attempts by award-givers the Swedish Academy to contact him since it named him as the winner on Oct. 13. On Saturday, Swedish media reported that Academy member Per Wastberg had said that if Dylan remained silent, it would be “rude and arrogant”. “The author awarded the Nobel Prize makes up his or her own mind regarding the ceremonies involved in the presentation of the prize,” Sara Danius, Permanent Secretary of the Academy, said in a statement. “The Swedish Academy has never held a view on a prize winners decision in this context, neither will it now, regardless of the decision reached.”The Academy gave 75-year-old Dylan the prize for “having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition”.

Source: Huffington Post October 23, 2016 01:41 UTC