Overview:
The Académie Goncourt has removed Haitian Canadian author Thélyson Orélien’s novel C’était ça ou mourir from consideration amid allegations of AI use and plagiarism in earlier writings. Orélien denies using AI to write the novel, while his Quebec publisher says it cannot confirm or deny the allegation. The dispute has raised broader questions about the reliability of AI detectors, literary authorship, and how Caribbean literary traditions are evaluated.
Editor’s note
This news reporting was prepared with the assistance of an AI editor.
The French Académie Goncourt has removed Haitian Canadian author Thélyson Orélien’s novel C’était ça ou mourir” from consideration for France’s prestigious Goncourt Prize as allegations that he used artificial intelligence to write the book have been followed by reports of plagiarism in some of his earlier works
The Académie announced the decision on Sept. 25, after French and Canadian media reported past instances of plagiarism in works Orélien published more than a decade ago. The Goncourt panel said the removal was based on the allegations and what it described as several analyses indicating that the novel was likely largely produced by artificial intelligence.
The novel follows a Haitian’s perilous journey toward Canada through Brazil, Mexico and the United States.
Orélien, 38, a poet and writer, was born in Gonaives, Haiti, and is now based in Quebec. He has denied the allegations in an interview with the news agency AFP. He has said he would provide documentation about how the book was written. He also said the accusations were an attack on his voice and described experiencing racist attacks since arriving in France. He has since said he would step back from the public debate.
Orélien publisher changes its position
The developments have also changed the position of Éditions du Boréal, the Quebec publisher that released the book before its French edition.
In an earlier response, Éditions du Boréal defended Orélien and said the manuscript had gone through several rounds of work with the author and editor, according to Reuters.
But in a statement issued Sept. 24, Boréal said it could not confirm or deny the allegations that AI was used to write the novel. The publisher said it had worked with Orélien to assemble documentation about the writing process but could not provide a definitive answer at this point.
Boréal said its own editorial process did not use artificial intelligence. It also said the allegations of plagiarism involving Orélien’s earlier work were a serious concern and that plagiarism is unacceptable.
The publisher has suspended promotional activities around the book, citing hateful messages and personal attacks against Orélien. The novel remains available for purchase.
How the AI controversy started
The AI allegations surfaced Sept. 21 with an anonymous account on X called “Balance ton Claude.” The account said it had analyzed passages from Orélien’s novel using Pangram, an AI-detection tool, and reported extremely high probabilities that the text had been generated by AI. The account claimed the software returned a 100% probability of AI-generated text in the passages it tested.
CBC News later said it replicated the experiment with different excerpts and obtained similar results.
Pangram co-founder Max Spero told Le Monde that an analysis of the full novel produced a 95% probability of AI-generated text. But the results are not, by themselves, proof of how the novel was written.
The literary controversy has spread from Canada, across France and the USA. The question of whether AI-detection software can establish authorship has become part of the controversy.
Alexandre Gefen, a researcher at France’s CNRS who studies literature and AI, said in a Sept. 27 TV5MONDE discussion that proving whether a literary work was produced by AI can be extremely difficult. He described the issue as potentially “indémontrable,” underscoring the limits of trying to establish authorship through detection tools alone.
That uncertainty has led some writers and academics to question whether AI detectors can reliably distinguish machine-generated writing from unusual or highly stylized human writing.
But the AI controversy expanded after La Presse and Radio-Canada examined writings Orélien published in Canadian and French media between 2012 and 2014.
La Presse reported that a 2013 column published under Orélien’s name was, in almost its entirety, a lightly edited translation of an earlier article published by The Philippine Star.
Radio-Canada’s fact-checking team, Décrypteurs, reported similarities in several texts published by Orélien in Canadian and French media. One earlier text, Où va le monde, which received a Radio-Canada public prize, was found to contain phrases from Le Matin des magiciens, a 1960 book by Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier.
From French bestseller to literary controversy
The controversy has already affected Orélien’s literary career.
The Salon du livre de l’Estrie in Quebec withdrew Orélien’s invitation as an honorary guest after the plagiarism reports.
Before the controversy, C’était ça ou mourir had emerged as a major literary success in France. The novel topped French bestseller lists and sold about 35,000 copies, according to The Conversation. It also won the Prix du roman Fnac and received strong reviews.
The success has since been overshadowed by the AI and plagiarism allegations.
The book remains available for purchase, and Orélien continues to deny using AI to write it.
