COPENHAGEN, Denmark — A member of the Swedish Academy that awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in literature to Bob Dylan says the songwriter’s silence since receiving the honor is “impolite and arrogant.”

“One can say that it is impolite and arrogant. He is who he is,” Per Wastberg told the newspaper Dagens Nyheter.

Bob Dylan is being criticized by a Swedish Academy member for his silence after receiving a Nobel Prize. Associated Press/Charles Dharapak

Wastberg said the academy still hopes to communicate with the 75-year-old artist, whose Nobel credits him with creating “new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.”

“We have agreed not to lift a finger. The ball lies entirely on his half,” Wastberg said..

The academy said it has failed to reach the tight-lipped laureate since he became the first musician in the Nobel’s 115-year history to win the prize in literature. The award was mentioned on Dylan’s Twitter and Facebook accounts.

Literature laureates have skipped the ceremony before. In 2004, Austrian playwright/novelist Elfriede Jelinek stayed home, citing a social phobia.

Harold Pinter and Alice Munro missed the ceremony for health reasons in 2005 and 2013, respectively.

Only two people have declined a Nobel Prize in literature. Boris Pasternak did so under pressure from Soviet authorities in 1958 and Jean-Paul Sartre turned it down in 1964.

Privacy and the price of fame have been Dylan themes.

It’s easy to read a response to Wastberg’s remarks in the 1981 song, “The Groom’s Still Waiting at The Altar.”

“Try to be pure at heart, they arrest you for robbery,” part of the lyrics say. “Mistake your shyness for aloofness, your silence for snobbery.”

A Nobel Prize is worth about $930,000.

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