Indian writer wins 'bad sex' prize
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The cover of Bahal's award winning book.
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LONDON, England -- A turbo-charged account of a lover's romantic liaison involving engine oil, Bugattis and Volkswagens has driven an India writer to this year's Literary Review's "Bad Sex in Fiction" award.
Aniruddha Bahal's book, "Bunker 13" -- described as a combination of the styles of ex-SAS author Andy McNab and romance novelist Jilly Cooper -- was awarded the prize on Wednesday for the most inept description of sexual intercourse in a novel.
Bahal's winning passage described the book's hero as an "ancient Aryan warlord" when a woman dropped her trousers to expose a strategically placed swastika. Then as the temperature between the two rises, Bahal shifts into top gear:
"Your RPM is hitting a new high. To wait any longer would be to lose prime time...
"She picks up a Bugatti's momentum. You want her more at a Volkswagen's steady trot. Squeeze the maximum mileage out of your gallon of gas. But she's eating up the road with all cylinders blazing. You lift her out. You want to try different kinds of fusion."
The "Bad Sex" judge saluted the "exuberance and energy" of the writing, giving Bahal the 11th annual prize and knocking off rival nominees including John Updike, Paul Theroux and Paulo Coelho.
Bahal, an Indian investigative journalist who posed as an arms dealer to expose an Indian military bribery scandal in 2001, flew to London to accept the little-coveted award from singer Sting in front of an audience of 500 people in London.
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Associated Press contributed to this report.
