AMERICAN AUTHOR CHRISTOPHER Bollen has won the Bad Sex in Fiction Award 2017 for a paragraph in his novel The Destroyers, which refers to the main character’s genitals as a “billiard rack”.
Each year since 1993, the Bad Sex in Fiction Award has honoured an author who has produced an outstandingly bad sex scene description in an otherwise good novel.
The purpose of the prize is to draw attention to poorly written passages of sexual description in modern fiction.
Bollen, who is the editor-in-chief of Interview magazine, was shortlisted for the award alongside Laurent Binet for The Seventh Function of Language, Venetia Welby for Mother of Darkness and Wilbur Smith for War Cry.
The Destroyers follows of the story of a man who escapes to the Greek Island of Patmos following his father’s death.
The judges of the award were swayed by a scene in The Destroyer in which Ian and his former girlfriend rekindled their relationship on the island.
The excerpt reads:
The skin along her arms and shoulders are different shades of tan like water stains in a bathtub.
Her face and vagina are competing for my attention, so I glance down at the billiard rack of my penis and testicles.
Bollen’s award was announced at a ceremony at the In and Out Club in London last night.
The judges said in a statement: “Christopher Bollen has prevailed against strong competition.
“In the week that Prince Harry announced his engagement to Meghan Markle, it seems only fitting that Britain’s most eligible literary prize has been snapped up by an American.”
Italian author Erri De Luca won the award last year for his novel The Day Before Happiness.
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