Stiff competition on Bad Sex shortlist

Eight authors, including Booker Prize nominee David Mitchell, best seller Mark Haddon and literary maverick Thomas Pynchon, were competing Wednesday for one of the world’s least-coveted literary prizes — the Bad Sex in Fiction Award.

Now in its 14th year, the award was established by Literary Review magazine to celebrate truly cringe-worthy erotic writing.

Winners receive a “semiabstract statuette representing Sex in the 1950s” and a bottle of champagne — but only if they show up at the ceremony. In the past, most have.

“It’s a very jolly affair,” Womack said. “It’s not meant to humiliate.”

Last year’s winner was food critic and novelist Giles Coren for a memorable passage comparing a male character’s genitalia to a shower hose. In 2004, the prize went to Tom Wolfe’s novel “I Am Charlotte Simmons” for sex scenes the judges called “ghastly … inept … (and) unrealistic.”

From the Yahoo News article; Guardian Unlimited also has an article on the subject here.