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Literary Review
Literary Review is a British literary magazine founded in 1979 by Anne Smith, then head of the
Department of English at the University of Edinburgh. Its offices are on Lexington Street in Soho.[1]
The magazine was edited for fourteen years by veteran journalist Auberon Waugh. The current
editor is Nancy Sladek.

Literary Review

Editor Nancy Sladek

Frequency 11 per year

Circulation 44,750 (as of 2006[?])[1]

Year founded 1979

Country United Kingdom

Based in London

Language English

Website literaryreview.co.uk

ISSN 0144-4360

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The magazine reviews a wide range of published books, including fiction, history, politics, biography
and travel, and additionally prints new fiction. It is also known for the annual Bad Sex in Fiction
Award it has run since 1993.

Bad Sex in Fiction Award

Each year since 1993, Literary Review has presented the annual Bad Sex in Fiction Award to the
author it deems to have produced the worst description of a sex scene in a novel. The award is
symbolically presented in the form of what has been described as a "semi-abstract trophy
representing sex in the 1950s",[2] depicting a naked woman draped over an open book. The award
was established by Rhoda Koenig, a literary critic, and Auberon Waugh, then the magazine's editor.

The aim of the award is "to draw attention to the crude, tasteless, often perfunctory use of
redundant passages of sexual description in the modern novel, and to discourage it".[2] The
enduring relevance of this rationale has been questioned, based on concerns about censorious
public shaming (including online) of authors of serious literary fiction.[3]

Winners
…
1993: Melvyn Bragg, A Time to Dance

1994: Philip Hook, The Stonebreakers

1995: Philip Kerr, Gridiron

1996: David Huggins, The Big Kiss: An Arcade Mystery

1997: Nicholas Royle, The Matter of the Heart

1998: Sebastian Faulks, Charlotte Gray

1999: A. A. Gill, Starcrossed

2000: Sean Thomas, Kissing England[4]

2001: Christopher Hart, Rescue Me

2002: Wendy Perriam, Tread Softly[2]

2003: Aniruddha Bahal, Bunker 13

2004: Tom Wolfe, I Am Charlotte Simmons

2005: Giles Coren, Winkler[5]

2006: Iain Hollingshead, Twenty Something[6]

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2007: Norman Mailer, The Castle in the Forest[7]

2008: Rachel Johnson, Shire Hell; John Updike, Lifetime Achievement Award[8]

2009: Jonathan Littell, The Kindly Ones

2010: Rowan Somerville, The Shape of Her[9]

2011: David Guterson, Ed King[10]

2012: Nancy Huston, Infrared[11]

2013: Manil Suri, The City of Devi

2014: Ben Okri, The Age of Magic[12]

2015: Morrissey, List of the Lost[13]

2016: Erri De Luca, The Day Before Happiness

2017: Christopher Bollen, The Destroyers

2018: James Frey, Katerina

2019: Didier Decoin, The Office of Gardens and Ponds and John Harvey, Pax[14]

Contributors

Contributors to the magazine have included Diana Athill, Kingsley Amis, Martin Amis, Beryl
Bainbridge, John Banville, Julian Barnes, Maile Chapman, Hilary Mantel, John Mortimer, Malcolm
Bradbury, A. S. Byatt, Paul Johnson, David Starkey, John Gray, Robert Harris, Nick Hornby, Richard
Ingrams, Joseph O'Neill, Lynn Barber, Derek Mahon, Oleg Gordievsky, John Sutherland and D. J.
Taylor. Recently published authors of new fiction include William Trevor, Claire Keegan and Nicola
Barker.

References

1. "Literary Review media kit (PDF)" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 October
2008.

2. "Third time 'lucky' for bad sex winner" . BBC News. 3 December 2005. Retrieved 27 November
2007.

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3. Gough, Julian (28 November 2019). "I was nominated for the Bad sex award. Don't laugh" .
The Guardian. "It is possible that the Bad sex award had a point when it was established back in
1993. After the collapse of Britain’s obscenity laws, and before the internet, authors were
occasionally encouraged to add some gratuitous sex in order to sell books, giving us the
bonkbuster. But that era is long gone... I find the Bad sex award, at this point in its history, in
bad faith. Its basic premise – that authors are adding unnecessary and lazy sex to increase sales
– is not just wrong, it’s the reverse of the truth. The award very deliberately avoids shortlisting
actual pornography or erotica and instead targets authors who are trying to be honest about
desire and sex, however distasteful the results may be. It deliberately and successfully
encourages the worst, and dumbest, misreading of fiction; the conflating of authors with their
characters in order to publicly shame them."

4. "Sean Thomas wins the Bad Sex in Fiction Award" . PR Newswire (Press release). Retrieved
27 November 2007.

5. "Bad sex book prize for journalist" . BBC News. 1 December 2005. Retrieved 27 November
2007.

6. "First-time author wins Bad Sex in Fiction honor" . Associated Press. 29 November 2006.
Retrieved 27 November 2007.

7. "Late Mailer wins 'bad sex' award" . BBC News. 27 November 2007. Retrieved 27 November
2007.

8. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/nov/25/bad-sex-johnson-updike-fiction

9. "Author Somerville wins 'bad sex' literary prize" . BBC News. 30 November 2010. Retrieved
30 November 2010.

10. Britain's Most Dreaded Literary Prize..., Literary Review article

11. Maev Kennedy (4 December 2012). "Bad sex award goes to Nancy Huston's 'babies and
bedazzlements' " . The Guardian. Retrieved 4 December 2012.

12. "Bad Sex 2014" .

13. "Morrissey wins Bad Sex in Fiction prize" . BBC News. 1 December 2015. Retrieved 2 December
2015.

14. "Literary Review’s Bad Sex in Fiction Award | Literary Review" .

External links

Official website

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Literary Review's Bad Sex in Fiction Award

Compendium of winners

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