First-time novelist Morrissey has won the most unwanted prize in writing – a bad sex in fiction award.

The former Smiths frontman, lauded for his lyrics during a career spanning more than three decades, received mixed reviews for his lightweight fictional debut List Of The Lost, published by Penguin.

Judges cited a scene between American track relay runner Ezra and his girlfriend Eliza in which the couple “rolled together into the one giggling snowball of full-figured copulation”, later describing his “bulbous salutation”.

Morrissey, whose solo hits include We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful and Everyday Is Like Sunday, is the 23rd winner of the not-so-prestigious prize awarded by the Literary Review magazine to spotlight “poorly written, perfunctory or redundant” passages of sexual description.

The winner was announced at an awards ceremony in London, though organisers said the animal rights campaigner and known anti-monarchist was not present.

Past recipients of the prize include Norman Mailer and Tom Wolfe.