Bad sex award cancelled as public exposed to ‘too many bad things in 2020’
January 2020
The Office of Gardens and Ponds by Didier Decoin review – into a vanished world
This quietly gripping French novel follows a young widow through Heian Japan over 1,000 years ago
December 2019
Brief letters
There’s nothing a bucket of cold water can’t fix
Bad sex award twosome: prize goes to Didier Decoin and John Harvey
November 2019
I was nominated for the Bad sex award. Don't laugh
This book prize doesn’t only encourage disdain for authors on the basis of a few sentences, it feeds a dangerously censorious culture
‘Mouthful by mouthful’: the 2019 Bad sex award in quotes
Extravagant metaphors are indecently exposed in the shortlist for the Literary Review’s annual booby prize for sexual scenes in fiction
Bad sex award: shortlist announced for 'Britain's most dreaded literary prize'
Dubious honour lines up contenders for the year’s most ‘outstandingly awful’ sexual scene, with Elizabeth Gilbert and Didier Decoin among the nominees
December 2018
There’s more to this bad fiction than bad sex – between the lines is privilege
Sian Cain
James Frey wins bad sex in fiction award for ‘dubious’ Katerina
November 2018
Haruki Murakami and James Frey lead all-male shortlist for bad sex award
Bad sex award 2018: the contenders in quotes
December 2017
The bad sex award inspired me to work harder at writing good sex
Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett
The bad sex awards made me think about my own sex scenes, writes Guardian columnist Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett
November 2017
Bad sex award won by Christopher Bollen's phallic 'billiard rack'
Passage from novel The Destroyers singled out by judges of dubious honour for ‘going overboard in its attempts to describe the familiar in new terms’
Bad sex award 2017 shortlist: the contenders in quotes
Literary theory, avalanches and a frosty encounter on a beach – it’s time to get up close and personal with the challengers for the Literary Review’s 2017 Bad sex in fiction prize
Judges admit this year's Bad sex award entries are 'quite good'
Judges nominate overheated passages from Wilbur Smith and Laurent Binet among others, but concede that 2017’s sex scenes have been rather well done
December 2016
Books blog
Why bad sex is an international language
Erri De Luca’s The Day Before Happiness is the first translated novel to win. But has a prize designed to ridicule high-profile literary novelists outlived its purpose?
November 2016
Bad sex award goes to Italian novelist Erri De Luca's genital 'ballet dancers'
The Literary Review’s annual pillory of overheated erotic writing selects a passage from The Day Before Happiness for high-profile ridicule
Why I deserve a Blue Peter badge for my description of sex
Janet Ellis
I have been nominated for the bad sex in fiction award – that means I must have been doing something right
We shouldn’t try to dress up what happened to poor Marilyn Monroe
Barbara Ellen
The tormented, vulnerable star was just weeks away from death when she sang to JFK in an outfit so tight she had to be sewn in
