Gorgeous Jhumpa among ‘thinking man’s sex symbols’

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New York: Indian descent writer Jhumpa Lahiri, with her ‘hypnotic eyes’, has been placed among the top in the list of ‘Thinking Man’s Sex Symbols’ for 2008 that is headed by Serbian tennis player Ana Ivanovic. Pulitzer Prize winner Lahiri, whose writing is characterized by her “plain” language, was placed at No 8 in the list of ‘Thinking Man’s Sex Symbols’ (TMSS) prepared by the popular website The Daily Beast.

“Jhumpa Lahiri is the gorgeous author of three seriously literary books including, a collection of short stories called Unaccustomed Earth. Those hypnotic eyes are devastating,” wrote Tour, a columnist and author. The website run by Tina Brown, former editor of Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, places tennis star Ivanovic on top of the list with British novelist Zadie Smith in ‘honourable mention’. They are followed by Tina Fey, American TV actor,producer; Sarah Silverman, American singer, actor and writer.

Lahiri’s debut short story collection, Interpreter of Maladies (1999), won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and her first novel, The Namesake (2003), was adapted into the popular film of the same name. In her recent Unaccustomed Earth, Lahiri steps forward to a scrutiny of the fate of the second generation immigrants and their children.

According to the columnist, a TMSS is someone “we imagine having great conversations with, laughing with, revelling in her success with, and getting drunk on her power with. Where Maxim girls are purposefully brainless, we look at a TMSS and say she’s hot because she’s smart and beautiful”.

“And that’s the challenge. Can a woman be independent, creative, sharp, witty, strong, and self-empowering without making me feel like she wants to be a man?”

Justifying placing Ivanovic on top, he said “Ivanovic is the most beautiful female professional athlete of all time” who studies finance online while she travels the world.