Best-selling author Zadie Smith has attacked 'misogynists' who claim she is too beautiful to be a great writer.
During an interview in the UK, Ms Smith condemned the media's "ridiculous" obsession with her looks and the implicit and "sinister" suggestion that a beautiful woman cannot achieve literary greatness.
The 37-year-old, who finished her award-winning debut novel White Teeth during her final year at Cambridge University, said: "People seem to think I put those photos in the paper. I don't put them in. Photo editors put my photo in because it's the easiest thing to do, I suppose."
She added: "Some of it is just ridiculous. A friend was telling me that in an Italian newspaper they had an editorial letter about how I was probably quite a good writer.
"But I couldn't possibly be a great writer because, in their opinion, I was too attractive and when you thought about writers those things never went together."
