Bad S-x in Fiction Award 2016 shortlist announced

In the UK, the Literary Review has announced the books shortlisted for the 2016 Bad S-x in Fiction Award. The six shortlisted titles are: A Doubter’s Almanac (Ethan Canin, Bloomsbury), Men Like Air (Tom Connolly, Myriad Editions), The Day before Happiness (Erri De Luca, Penguin), The Butcher’s Hook (Janet Ellis, Hodder & Stoughton), Leave Me (Gayle Forman, S&S) and The Tobacconist (Robert Seethaler, Picador). The Literary Review said that Ian McEwan, Eimear McBride and Jonathan Safran Foer had also been nominated but ‘ultimately failed to make the grade’, as had Donald Trump for his ‘locker-room talk’, which was dismissed on the grounds that the award only covers fiction. The prize, which was established in 1993 to ‘draw attention to poorly written, perfunctory or redundant passages of sexual description in modern fiction’, will be awarded on 30 November. The Guardian has published extracts from the shortlisted novels here.

Category: International news