We finally have an answer. Bob Dylan will, indeed, accept his Nobel Prize in Literature — probably.

In his first public comments on the award, made in an interview with the Telegraph, a British newspaper, Dylan was asked whether he would attend the Nobel ceremony in Sweden in December. His response was characteristically mysterious.

"Absolutely," Dylan said. "If it's at all possible."

His comments in the interview — ostensibly to promote an exhibition of his visual art in London — came after two weeks of public silence by Dylan about the Nobel, during which time members of the 18-person Swedish Academy became increasingly agitated. First they noted, with some puzzlement, that they had not spoken to Dylan personally. Then another member called his nonresponse "impolite and arrogant."

(And why couldn't they reach him? "Well, I'm right here," Dylan said, playfully and without further explanation.)

In the interview, his first in almost two years, Dylan is described as being surprised but pleased by the honor.

"It's hard to believe," he said. His reaction upon being told that he had won: "Amazing, incredible. Whoever dreams about something like that?"

His new art show, "The Beaten Path," will open Nov. 5 at the Halcyon Gallery in London. The Nobel ceremony is Dec. 10 in Stockholm, Sweden.