For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails
He might have been awarded the literary world’s most precious accolade last month, but Australian author and Man Booker winner Richard Flanagan is also in line for a less illustrious gong: the Bad Sex In Fiction Award.
Flanagan’s Booker winner, The Narrow Road To The Deep North , is up against Newsnight presenter Kirsty Wark’s novel The Legacy Of Elizabeth Pringle.
The competition aims to draw attention to "poorly written, perfunctory or redundant passages of sexual description in modern fiction, and to discourage them".
The shortlist of ten books chosen by Literary Review also includes Ben Okri and esteemed writer Haruki Murakami.
The offending passage in Flanagan’s novel reads:
“If the earth spun it faltered, if the wind blew it waited. Hands found flesh; flesh, flesh. He felt the improbable weight of her eyelash with his own; he kissed the slight, rose-coloured trench that remained from her knicker elastic, running around her belly like the equator line circling the world. As they lost themselves in the circumnavigation of each other, there came from nearby shrill shrieks that ended in a deeper howl.”
“Dorrigo looked up. A large dog stood at the top of the dune. Above blood-jagged drool, its slobbery mouth clutched a twitching fairy penguin."
Bad Sex In Fiction Awards 2014 shortlistShow all 10 1 /10Bad Sex In Fiction Awards 2014 shortlist Bad Sex In Fiction Awards 2014 shortlist Saskia Goldschmidt The Hormone Factory has been nominated for a Bad Sex in Fiction award 'I kept myself quiet for a moment, kissed her and said, ‘I’ll be very gentle, all right?’ Running her tongue over her lips she nodded; she was as hot as boiling water in a distillation flask, and it wasn’t long before I was able to really get going. We both came at the same time. I stayed inside her for a few seconds, gazed at her, and smiled.'
Bad Sex In Fiction Awards 2014 shortlist Haruki Murakami Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki And His Years of Pilgrimage has been nominated for a Bad Sex in Fiction award 'The girls entwined themselves lithely around Tsukuru. Kuro’s breasts were full and soft. Shiro’s were small, but her nipples were as hard as tiny round pebbles. Their pubic hair was as wet as a rain forest. Their breath mingled with his, becoming one, like currents from far away, secretly overlapping at the dark bottom of the sea.'
Bad Sex In Fiction Awards 2014 shortlist Amy Grace Loyd The Affairs Of Others has been nominated for a Bad Sex in Fiction award 'I arranged myself like a vise around her, to remind her what it was to be contained – her upset, her desire, her choices, the bad ones too. Her salt in my mouth, I started to tell her about the Maine sea roses, rugosa, and how they grew like weeds, despite the elements, despite adversity; but she could not hear me over her complaints, the regular pleas and now the struggling, the struggling against me, to get away from me, to the phone. But I was a tourniquet, however poor, against the woundedness dissolving her into a liquid that kept flowing into me. '
Bad Sex In Fiction Awards 2014 shortlist Wilbur Smith Desert God has been nominated for a Bad Sex in Fiction award 'Her hair was piled high, but when she shook her head it came cascading down in a glowing wave over her shoulders, and fell as far as her knees. This rippling curtain did not cover her breasts which thrust their way through it like living creatures. They were perfect rounds, white as mare’s milk and tipped with ruby nipples that puckered as my gaze passed over them. '
Bad Sex In Fiction Awards 2014 shortlist Richard Flanagan The Booker Prize-winning The Narrow Road to the Deep North has been nominated for a Bad Sex in Fiction award 'If the earth spun it faltered, if the wind blew it waited. Hands found flesh; flesh, flesh. He felt the improbable weight of her eyelash with his own; he kissed the slight, rose-coloured trench that remained from her knicker elastic, running around her belly like the equator line circling the world. As they lost themselves in the circumnavigation of each other, there came from nearby shrill shrieks that ended in a deeper howl.' 'Dorrigo looked up. A large dog stood at the top of the dune. Above blood-jagged drool, its slobbery mouth clutched a twitching fairy penguin.''
Bad Sex In Fiction Awards 2014 shortlist Ben Okri The Age Of Magic has been nominated for a Bad Sex in Fiction award 'She became aware of places in her that could only have been concealed there by a god with a sense of humour. Adrift on warm currents, no longer of this world, she became aware of him gliding into her. He loved her with gentleness and strength, stroking her neck, praising her face with his hands, till she was broken up and began a low rhythmic wail. She was a little overwhelmed with being the adored focus of such power, as he rose and fell. She felt certain now that there was a heaven and that it was here, in her body. The universe was in her and with each movement it unfolded to her. Somewhere in the night a stray rocket went off. She must have been shouting, for his hand was cupping her mouth. Lost to all reason, she wanted to encompass him with beautiful obscenities.'
Bad Sex In Fiction Awards 2014 shortlist Michael Cunningham The Snow Queen has been nominated for a Bad Sex in Fiction award ''With Tyler’s touch, her nipple (biggish for her tiny breasts, raspberry-colored) stiffens. She makes a sound that’s more sigh than moan. She buries her hands in his hair. Tyler gets up onto his knees, pulls his jean and boxers down. His hard-on pops. Liz kicks off her boots, pulls her own jeans and thong off, shimmies them down to her ankles and thrashes them away, spreads her legs around Tyler’s hips. Tyler gets only the briefest look at her crotch – the trimmed line of her dark pubic hair, the robust pink of her labia – before pushing back down onto her.'
Bad Sex In Fiction Awards 2014 shortlist Helen Walsh The Lemon Grove has been nominated for a Bad Sex in Fiction award ''We can’t,’ she begins. His mouth is on hers; his tongue is jabbing around her gums, the wrinkled roof of her mouth. He pulls away a second time. ‘Look at me,’ he says. She looks him in the eye. She reaches out and cups his balls and squeezes gently. Nathan closes his eyes, bites his lip. Then he steps into her, furious. And when it hits her, it slams her hard and fast, as life once had.'
Bad Sex In Fiction Awards 2014 shortlist Kirsty Wark The Legacy Of Elizabeth Pringle has been nominated for a Bad Sex in Fiction award 'I arched my body against him and taking his hand I guided it down over my navel and placed it between my legs, my hand on top of his, holding it there, gasping as his fingers circled me softly. He said my name over and over as he lifted me up, my legs curled around him, and laid me down beneath him on the high bed. I had never imagined that I was capable of wanton behaviour, but it was as if a dam within me had burst and we made love that day and night like two people starved, slowly suffused with more and more pleasure, exploring and devouring every inch of each other, so as not to miss one single possibility of passion. It was as if I were drinking in life itself.'
Bad Sex In Fiction Awards 2014 shortlist May-Lan Tan Things To Make And Break has been nominated for a Bad Sex in Fiction award 'She wriggles down under the blankets and pulls off my jeans and skivvies. I lie back and her hair tickles my stomach, her mouth wrapping over me. I’d forgotten this about her: she has the smallest, hottest mouth, as if she’s storing lava in her cheeks. I shut my eyes, holding her hair by the roots. My bones start to liquefy. When I’m about to come, I flip her onto her back and take off her underwear'
Announcing the nominees for the award, which will be given on 3 December, the magazine said: "The judges also considered Andrew Marr's Head Of State, which started arrestingly - 'they bucked like deer and squirmed like eels. And after that, vice-versa' - but failed to sustain its early promise.
This year marks the 22nd annual award and the current holder is Manil Suri for The City of Devi.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies