Literary Review
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| Editor | Nancy Sladek |
|---|---|
| Frequency | 11 per year |
| Circulation | 44,750 (as of 2006[?])[1][self-published source] |
| Founded | 1979 |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Based in | London |
| Language | English |
| Website | literaryreview |
| ISSN | 0144-4360 |
Literary Review is a British literary magazine founded in 1979 by Anne Smith, then head of the Department of English at the University of Edinburgh. Its offices are on Lexington Street in Soho.[1] The magazine was edited for fourteen years by veteran journalist Auberon Waugh. The current editor is Nancy Sladek.
The magazine reviews a wide range of published books, including fiction, history, politics, biography and travel, and additionally prints new fiction. It is also known for the annual Bad Sex in Fiction Award that ran from 1993 to 2019.
Bad Sex in Fiction Award
Each year since 1993, Literary Review has presented the annual Bad Sex in Fiction Award to the author it deems to have produced the worst description of a sex scene in a novel. The award is symbolically presented in the form of what has been described as a "semi-abstract trophy representing sex in the 1950s",[2] depicting a naked woman draped over an open book. The award was established by Rhoda Koenig, a literary critic, and Auberon Waugh, then the magazine's editor.
The aim of the award is "to draw attention to the crude, tasteless, often perfunctory use of redundant passages of sexual description in the modern novel, and to discourage it".[2] The enduring relevance of this rationale has been questioned, based on concerns about censorious public shaming (including online) of authors of serious literary fiction.[3]
Winners
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- 1993: Melvyn Bragg, A Time to Dance[4]
- 1994: Philip Hook, The Stonebreakers,[4] presented by Marianne Faithfull
- 1995: Philip Kerr, Gridiron[4]
- 1996: David Huggins, The Big Kiss: An Arcade Mystery[4]
- 1997: Nicholas Royle, The Matter of the Heart,[4] presented by Stephen Fry
- 1998: Sebastian Faulks, Charlotte Gray[4]
- 1999: A. A. Gill, Starcrossed[4]
- 2000: Sean Thomas, Kissing England[5]
- 2001: Christopher Hart, Rescue Me
- 2002: Wendy Perriam, Tread Softly[2]
- 2003: Aniruddha Bahal, Bunker 13
- 2004: Tom Wolfe, I Am Charlotte Simmons, presented by Sting
- 2005: Giles Coren, Winkler[6]
- 2006: Iain Hollingshead, Twenty Something[7]
- 2007: Norman Mailer, The Castle in the Forest[8]
- 2008: Rachel Johnson, Shire Hell; John Updike, Lifetime Achievement Award[9]
- 2009: Jonathan Littell, The Kindly Ones
- 2010: Rowan Somerville, The Shape of Her[10]
- 2011: David Guterson, Ed King[11]
- 2012: Nancy Huston, Infrared[12]
- 2013: Manil Suri, The City of Devi
- 2014: Ben Okri, The Age of Magic[13]
- 2015: Morrissey, List of the Lost[14]
- 2016: Erri De Luca, The Day Before Happiness
- 2017: Christopher Bollen, The Destroyers
- 2018: James Frey, Katerina, presented by Kim Wilde
- 2019: Didier Decoin, The Office of Gardens and Ponds and John Harvey, Pax,[15] presented by Nicky Haslam
- 2020: Not awarded, citing that people have been "subjected to too many bad things this year"[16]
- 2021: Not awarded.
- 2022: Not awarded, but according to the judges, if there had been an award, it would have gone to Suleika Dawson for The Secret Heart.[17]
Contributors
Contributors to the magazine have included Diana Athill, Kingsley Amis, Martin Amis, Beryl Bainbridge, John Banville, Julian Barnes, Maile Chapman, Boris Dralyuk, Hilary Mantel, John Mortimer, Malcolm Bradbury, A. S. Byatt, Paul Johnson, David Starkey, John Gray, Robert Harris, Nick Hornby, Richard Ingrams, Joseph O'Neill, Lynn Barber, Derek Mahon, Oleg Gordievsky, John Sutherland, D. J. Taylor, William Trevor, Claire Keegan and Nicola Barker.
References
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- ^ a b Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Literary Review media kit (PDF)" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 October 2008.
- ^ a b c Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Third time 'lucky' for bad sex winner". BBC News. 3 December 2005. Retrieved 27 November 2007.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Gough, Julian (28 November 2019). "I was nominated for the Bad sex award. Don't laugh". The Guardian.
It is possible that the Bad sex award had a point when it was established back in 1993. After the collapse of Britain's obscenity laws, and before the internet, authors were occasionally encouraged to add some gratuitous sex in order to sell books, giving us the bonkbuster. But that era is long gone... I find the Bad sex award, at this point in its history, in bad faith. Its basic premise – that authors are adding unnecessary and lazy sex to increase sales – is not just wrong, it's the reverse of the truth. The award very deliberately avoids shortlisting actual pornography or erotica and instead targets authors who are trying to be honest about desire and sex, however distasteful the results may be. It deliberately and successfully encourages the worst, and dumbest, misreading of fiction; the conflating of authors with their characters in order to publicly shame them.
- ^ a b c d e f g Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Rhind-Tutt, Louise (27 November 2017). "Celebrating 25 years of the worst sex scenes in literary history". i.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Sean Thomas wins the Bad Sex in Fiction Award". PR Newswire (Press release). Retrieved 27 November 2007.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Bad sex book prize for journalist". BBC News. 1 December 2005. Retrieved 27 November 2007.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."First-time author wins Bad Sex in Fiction honor". Associated Press. 29 November 2006. Retrieved 27 November 2007.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Late Mailer wins 'bad sex' award". BBC News. 27 November 2007. Retrieved 27 November 2007.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Flood, Alison (25 November 2008). "Rachel Johnson 'honoured' to win Bad Sex award". The Guardian.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Author Somerville wins 'bad sex' literary prize". BBC News. 30 November 2010. Retrieved 30 November 2010.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Jonathan Beckman - Bad Sex Report 2011". Literary Review. December 2011.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Maev Kennedy (4 December 2012). "Bad sex award goes to Nancy Huston's 'babies and bedazzlements'". The Guardian. Retrieved 4 December 2012.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Jonathan Beckman - Twitching Fairy Penguin". Literary Review. December 2014.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Morrissey wins Bad Sex in Fiction prize". BBC News. 1 December 2015. Retrieved 2 December 2015.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Literary Review - For People Who Devour Books". Literary Review. 17 August 2023.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Chandler, Mark (8 December 2020). "Bad Sex award cancelled to spare people from more bad things". The Bookseller. Archived from the original on December 8, 2020. Retrieved 8 December 2020.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Croft, Ethan (9 December 2022). "Bad Sex Award cancelled, but John Le Carré's still a winner". Evening Standard. Retrieved 12 July 2023.
