Egg metaphor clinches 'Bad Sex' prize

Warning: This article contains language and/or sexual references that younger readers are advised to avoid.

John Littell has been named as the winner of this year's 'Bad Sex in Fiction' award for his novel The Kindly Ones.

The author won the Literary Review accolade ahead of writers including Phillip Roth and Nick Cave.

The judges said of the novel: "'It is in part a work of genius. However, a mythologically inspired passage and lines such as, 'I c*me suddenly, a jolt that emptied my head like a spoon scraping the inside of a soft-boiled egg', clinched the award."

"We hope he takes it in good humour."

Another passage that helped Littell win the award included the excerpt: "This sex was watching at me, spying on me, like a Gorgon's head, like a motionless Cyclops whose single eye never blinks. Little by little this silent gaze penetrated me to the marrow."