England's most feared literary prize was announced Tuesday night -- "awarded" wouldn't be the right word, because the winning author was not in attendance. That was Nancy Huston, who took the 2012 Bad Sex in Fiction Award for her novel "Infrared."

The Bad Sex in Fiction Award is presented by the Literary Review, the longstanding British literary journal. While all in good fun, it's not a prize that authors hope to win. Although Huston did beat out some pretty stiff competition, including American author Tom Wolfe -- as a prior winner, he was considered by some to be a favorite.

The judges cited "Infrared" passages such as "flesh, that archaic kingdom that brings forth tears and terrors, nightmares, babies and bedazzlements," and a long one building to a climax of  “undulating space where the undulating skies make your non-body undulate.”