The Award was established by Auberon Waugh, the then editor of the Literary Review, and literary critic Rhoda Koenig.
It has been awarded every year since 1993.
"the Bad Sex in Fiction Award has honoured an author who has produced an outstandingly bad scene of sexual description in an otherwise good novel. The purpose of the prize is to draw attention to poorly written, perfunctory or redundant passages of sexual description in modern fiction."
Literary Review
When you consider how many books are produced, it's going to be the mainstream published type that will get the most notice, and readers who think these books deserved nominating...
You can read about a few of the nominated authors who escaped the shortlist in this Guardian article about this year's list.
(The new US President Elect was nominated apparently, but was excluded because it wasn't fiction...)
So this year's contenders:
A Doubter's Almanac by Ethan Canin
The Tobacconist by Robert Seethaler
Men Like Air by Tom Connolly
The Butcher's Hook by Janet Ellis
Leave Me by Gayle Forman
The Day Before Happiness by Erri De Luca
Having read the entries for this year, I can't see why Gayle Forman was included...
Whoever wins will likely see a rise in sales following the announcement on the 30th November.
Of the candidates this year, it has to be Erri De Luca's The Day Before Happiness. But Janet Ellis does deserve a commendation for The Butcher's Hook...
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| Which will win? |
image courtesy of & freedigitalphotos.net
8 comments:
I'm still not listed??? I actually included a sex scene in my last book, which should have helped my chances enormously, but I've still missed out.
Isn't it extraordinary that an award for writing something badly is likely to help increase sales in the book!
Susan A Eames at
Travel, Fiction and Photos
Brilliant! Must read them!
I'm never sure whether authors should be pleased or not to be nominated!
I'm sure the scene in your book was done tastefully, Patsy :D - not got to reading it yet, it's in my digital tbr pile. :)
I suspect it's like that saying, Susan, 'there is no such thing as bad publicity' or something similar.
The redeeming element is that they're good books apart from the bad sex scenes, Wendy. :D
A few haven't taken their nominations well over the years, Rosemary, but Janet Ellis, from this year's list, has actually written a piece for one of the papers about it.:-)
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