Manil Suri wins 2013 Bad Sex in Fiction award

It was a threesome in Mumbai that persuaded the judges to give the 2013 Bad Sex in Fiction award to Manil Suri for his novel “The City of Devi.” The award was presented in London on Tuesday by film and television star Joan Collins.

In one notable passage, Suri wrote, “Surely supernovas explode that instant, somewhere, in some galaxy. The hut vanishes, and with it the sea and the sands -- only Karun’s body, locked with mine, remains. We streak like superheroes past suns and solar systems, we dive through shoals of quarks and atomic nuclei. In celebration of our breakthrough fourth star, statisticians the world over rejoice.”

Suri has been in the running for some esteemed literary prizes in the past, including the Man Booker and Faulkner awards. But the Bad Sex in Fiction Award is something authors hope to avoid; as Margaret Atwood once told The Times, “Nobody wants to win that award.”

At least Suri managed not to be in attendance.The Bombay-born author is a professor at the University of Maryland and didn’t go to London for the ceremony.

Representatives of his British publisher did, however. “Take ‘The City of Devi’ home to bed with you tonight,” they gamely joked when the book was announced as the winner.

Other finalists for the Bad Sex in Fiction Award included Susan Choi’s “My Education” and “House of Earth” by Woody Guthrie, a long undiscovered novel published by Johnny Depp’s new imprint at HarperCollins.

Previous winners of the Bad Sex in Fiction award include Norman Mailer, Sebastian Faulks, Tom Wolfe and Jonathan Littell.

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