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Haruki Murakami and James Frey lead all-male shortlist for bad sex award

Annual prize intended to show up the worst sexual description in fiction singles out some famous names for a second time – but no women

Female authors have managed to avoid including bad sex scenes in their novels this year – at least according to the Literary Review, which has announced an all-male shortlist for that least-coveted of literary prizes, the Bad sex in fiction award.

Haruki Murakami, often named as a contender for the Nobel prize, makes the cut for passages from his latest novel Killing Commendatore in which impossible amounts of semen are ejaculated by the protagonist. The controversial US novelist James Frey, who was exposed for inventing parts of his memoir A Million Little Pieces, was selected for a scene in his novel Katerina described by judges as “almost like wish fulfilment”.

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