BROADCASTER Kirsty Wark has been nominated for this year's bad sex in fiction award.
The Scots presenter and author received it for her debut novel, The Legacy of Elizabeth Pringle. Dubbed "Britain's most dreaded literary prize". It is compiled annually by the Literary Review to draw attention to and discourage poorly written, perfunctory or redundant passages of sexual description in modern fiction.
Judges also considered including fellow Scot Andrew Marr's Head of State on the shortlist of ten novels, referring to a sex scene in which characters "bucked like deer and squirmed like eels" as an outstanding lowpoint.
Ms Wark finds herself in the company of prestigious authors on the list including former Man Booker prize winner Richard Flanagan, former Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Cunningham and perennially tipped favourite for the Nobel Prize Haruki Murakami.
Last year's winner was Manil Suri for The City of Devi.
Jonathan Beckman, of the Literary Review, said: "I think this is one of the strongest shortlists in recent years, containing some real literary heavyweights."
Ms Wark has yet to comment on her nomination or the excruciating extract which caught the judges' attention. It reads: "I stood, my back straight against the wall, as he pulled the bow of my sash apart and undid the buttons that ran down the front of my dress one by one, until it fell open. Pulling off his shirt, he put his face to the edge of my slip and cupping my breasts in his hands he pressed his tongue between them licking beads of perspiration from my skin. I arched my body against him and taking his hand I guided it down over my navel and placed it between my legs, my hand on top of his, holding it there, gasping as his fingers circled me softly.
"He said my name over and over as he lifted me up, my legs curled around him, and laid me down beneath him on the high bed. I had never imagined I was capable of wanton behaviour."
The awards take place on December 3 in London. Nominations are: Legacy of Elizabeth Pringle by Kirsty Wark; The Snow Queen, Michael Cunningham; The Narrow Road to the Deep North, Richard Flanagan; The Hormone Factory, Saskia Goldschmidt; the Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and his years of Pilgrimage, Haruki Murakami; The Age of Magic, Ben Okri; The Affairs of Others, Amy Grace Loyd; Desert God by Wilbur Smith; Things to Make and Break by May-Lan Tan; and The Lemon Grove by Helen Walsh.
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