From Surf Wiki (app.surf) — the open knowledge base

Literary Review

British literary magazine

Field	Value
title	Literary Review
image_file	Literary Review December 2018 cover.png
circulation	44,750 (as of 2006[?])
frequency	11 per year
language	English
editor	Nancy Sladek
founded
country	United Kingdom
based	London
website
issn	0144-4360
logo	Literary Review.png

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. 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", 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". The enduring relevance of this rationale has been questioned, based on concerns about censorious public shaming (including online) of authors of serious literary fiction.

Winners

1993: Melvyn Bragg, A Time to Dance
1994: Philip Hook, The Stonebreakers, presented by Marianne Faithfull
1995: Philip Kerr, Gridiron
1996: David Huggins, The Big Kiss: An Arcade Mystery
1997: Nicholas Royle, The Matter of the Heart, presented by Stephen Fry
1998: Sebastian Faulks, Charlotte Gray
1999: A. A. Gill, Starcrossed
2000: Sean Thomas, Kissing England
2001: Christopher Hart, Rescue Me
2002: Wendy Perriam, Tread Softly
2003: Aniruddha Bahal, Bunker 13
2004: Tom Wolfe, I Am Charlotte Simmons, presented by Sting
2005: Giles Coren, Winkler
2006: Iain Hollingshead, Twenty Something
2007: Norman Mailer, The Castle in the Forest
2008: Rachel Johnson, Shire Hell; John Updike, Lifetime Achievement Award
2009: Jonathan Littell, The Kindly Ones
2010: Rowan Somerville, The Shape of Her
2011: David Guterson, Ed King
2012: Nancy Huston, Infrared
2013: Manil Suri, The City of Devi
2014: Ben Okri, The Age of Magic
2015: Morrissey, List of the Lost
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, presented by Nicky Haslam
2020: Not awarded, citing that people have been "subjected to too many bad things this year"
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.

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 and D. J. Taylor. Recently published authors of new fiction include William Trevor, Claire Keegan and Nicola Barker.

References

"Literary Review media kit (PDF)".
(3 December 2005). "Third time 'lucky' for bad sex winner". BBC News.
(28 November 2019). "I was nominated for the Bad sex award. Don't laugh". [[The Guardian]].
Rhind-Tutt, Louise. (27 November 2017). "Celebrating 25 years of the worst sex scenes in literary history". i.
"Sean Thomas wins the Bad Sex in Fiction Award". PR Newswire.
(1 December 2005). "Bad sex book prize for journalist". BBC News.
(29 November 2006). "First-time author wins Bad Sex in Fiction honor".
(27 November 2007). "Late Mailer wins 'bad sex' award". BBC News.
Flood, Alison. (25 November 2008). "Rachel Johnson 'honoured' to win Bad Sex award". The Guardian.
(30 November 2010). "Author Somerville wins 'bad sex' literary prize". BBC News.
(December 2011). "Jonathan Beckman - Bad Sex Report 2011".
Maev Kennedy. (4 December 2012). "Bad sex award goes to Nancy Huston's 'babies and bedazzlements'". The Guardian.
(December 2014). "Jonathan Beckman - Twitching Fairy Penguin".
(1 December 2015). "Morrissey wins Bad Sex in Fiction prize". BBC News.
(17 August 2023). "Literary Review - For People Who Devour Books".
Chandler, Mark. (8 December 2020). "Bad Sex award cancelled to spare people from more bad things".
(9 December 2022). "Bad Sex Award cancelled, but John Le Carré's still a winner". Evening Standard.

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

1979-establishments-in-the-united-kingdom book-review-magazines literary-magazines-published-in-the-united-kingdom magazines-established-in-1979 magazines-published-in-london

Want to explore this topic further?

Ask Mako anything about Literary Review — get instant answers, deeper analysis, and related topics.

Research with Mako

Free with your Surf account

Content sourced from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

This content may have been generated or modified by AI. CloudSurf Software LLC is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of AI-generated content. Always verify important information from primary sources.

Report