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US author Christopher Bollen wins Bad Sex in Fiction prize
A detail from the cover.
American author Christopher Bollen has won the dreaded Bad Sex in Fiction Prize for his novel The Destroyers.
The thriller set among international jet-setters on a Greek island has generally won critical praise.
But Bad Sex judges crowned Bollen winner for a passage comparing a male character’s genitalia to a billiard rack.
Bollen beat finalists including Laurent Binet, Venetia Welby and Wilbur Smith.
Run by the Literary Review magazine, the tongue-in-cheek award was founded in 1993 to spotlight “crude, badly written or perfunctory” passages of sexual description in fiction.
Explicitly pornographic works aren’t eligible.
Previous recipients include Sebastian Faulks, the late Norman Mailer and the late John Updike, who was awarded a Bad Sex lifetime achievement award in 2008.
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