Bad Sex Award cancelled, but John Le Carré’s still a winner

Suleika Dawson; The Secret Heart

(Picture: Suleika Dawson/Mudlark)

Each December, the writers of London gather to bestow the Bad Sex In Fiction Award on an unlucky author. Judged by journalists at the Literary Review magazine, the prize recognises the most “outstandingly awful scene of sexual description” in a recently published book.

Sadly this year the award has been cancelled. “We decided to give novelists a further year’s reprieve, drawing a line under work produced during the pandemic,” the panel of judges told us. “No such allowances will be made in 2023, when the award will go ahead as usual.”