Weeks after his novel about a young couple’s unconsummated wedding night was beaten to the Man Booker Prize, Ian McEwan will be feeling relieved that On Chesil Beach has failed to make the shortlist for the Bad Sex in Fiction Award.

The dreaded award was established by the late Auberon Waugh when he was editor-in-chief of The Literary Review. Its aim is to recognise the worst description of the sexual act in literature – and to discourage it.

On Chesil Beach was eclipsed by Jeanette Winterson’s The Stone Gods, Richard Milward’s Apples, Ali Smith’s Girl Meets Boy, David Thewlis’s The Late Hector Kipling, the late Norman Mailer’s The Castle in the Forest, Gary Shteyngart’s Absurdistan, Christopher Rush’s Will and Clare Clark’s The Nature of Monsters.

The winner will be announced today, when passages from the books will be read aloud by actresses. A taster from Smith’s novel reads: “We were tangled in each other’s arms . . . Her hand opened me. Then her hand became a wing. Then everything about me became a wing . . . a bird that could sing Mozart.”

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