Author Mailer wins 'bad sex' title

Late author Norman Mailer has won the Literary Review's Bad Sex in Fiction Award.

Mailer won the title, which pays tribute to the worst descriptions of intimate encounters, for his novel The Castle in the Forest.

Passages of Mailer's novel were read out by actresses at a ceremony in London, which also acted as a celebration of the late writer's work.

The award, which is in its 14th year, attempts to discourage writers from producing awkward passages about making love in otherwise great novels.

Other writers nominated for the gong were David Thewlis for The Late Hector Kipling and Jeanette Winterston for The Stone Gods.

A.A. Gill, Tom Wolfe and Sebastian Faulks have all won the award in the past.

A judge said of Mailer: "We were sure he would have taken the prize in good humour."