Nominated for crude award ... author Christos Tsiolkas. Photo: Sahlan Hayes
Australian author of The Slap, Christos Tsiolkas, is in the running for the unenviable Bad Sex in Literature Award.
The Man Booker long-listed novel was nominated for the tongue-in-cheek prize in the UK on Thursday.
The award, run by Literary Review, is handed out for the most embarrassing passage of sexual description in a novel.
One of the judges, Jonathan Beckmam, told the Guardian that The Slap was nominated in part for the sheer quantity of sex in the novel. Nominating an example from the book, he cited a line that said two characters "f*cked for ages".
"It's very repetitive," he said to the UK paper, "the sheer laziness of saying 'they f*cked for ages' is just one example of slack writing."
The Slap follows the consequences of a young child being slapped at a Melbourne barbecue.
The book has divided readers, with one reviewer calling it "unbelievably misogynistic", while others have praised it as "riveting from beginning to end".
Other nominated books for the prize include Maya by former UK Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell, and Freedom by US novelist Jonathan Franzen. The latter was nominated for a sex scene between the dysfunctional characters Connie and Joey which includes the line: "her excited clitoris grew to be eight inches long, a protruding pencil of tenderness".
Compilers of the list said veteran authors Martin Amis and Ian McEwan had missed out despite being widely tipped to be nominated for the prize.
The Golden Mean by Annabel Lyon, A Life Apart by Neel Mukherjee, Heartbreak by Craig Raine, The Shape of Her by Rowan Somerville and Mr Peanut by Adam Ross were also nominated for the 18th annual award.
Last year, the prize went to Jonathan Littell for The Kindly Ones, which was originally published in French.
Organisers said the award was given to "draw attention to the crude, tasteless, often perfunctory use of redundant passages of sexual description in the modern novel, and to discourage it."
This year's winner will be announced on Monday, November 29 at the Naval and Military Club in St James's Square, London.
PA - Sydney Morning Herald
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