A major French literary prize awarded to Haitian-Canadian writer Thélyson Orélien has been overshadowed by allegations that artificial intelligence was used to produce large portions of his debut novel.
Orélien, 38, received the prestigious Prix du Roman Fnac for C’était ça ou mourir (It Was Either That or Die), a novel that has drawn growing attention in France and abroad. But shortly after the award, an X account known as Balance ton Claude accused the author of relying heavily on AI to write the book.
The account said it had submitted passages from different sections of the manuscript to Pangram, an AI-detection service, and received what it described as a definitive result.
“We tested several passages, from different bits of the manuscript, to come up with the identical result: 100 per cent AI,” the group said.
Balance ton Claude described Pangram as “by far the most accurate” AI-detection programme and claimed that the possibility of an erroneous result was almost negligible.
Orélien has strongly rejected the accusation, calling it an attack on his work and insisting that the novel was written by him.
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| Copies of the novel C etait ca ou mourir It Was That or Die by Thelyson Orelien are displayed on a bookstore table, with their yellow cover and the graphic illustration occupying the lower part. Paris, France, September 23, 2026. The quote highlighted on the cover underlines the strength of the text, while the mention of the fall literary season places the work in current publishing news. (Photo by Riccardo Milani / Hans Lucas / Hans Lucas via AFP) |
The author said he was working with his publishers in France and Canada to assemble a dossier that could demonstrate that he wrote the novel himself.
“My traditions are Haitian and Caribbean. The images, the repetitions and the rhythms are the living word, they are my own,” he said.
His French publisher, Grasset, has also come to his defence, describing the allegations as “atrociously injurious to a writer with an exceptional life-story”. The publishing house has characterised the novel as an original and powerful work.
The dispute comes at a particularly significant moment in Orélien’s literary career. His debut is not only receiving attention following the Prix du Roman Fnac but has also been shortlisted for two of France’s best-known literary awards, the Prix Goncourt and the Prix Renaudot.
At the centre of the novel is the experience of a teacher fleeing gang violence in Haiti. His journey eventually takes him to Canada, where he begins to rediscover what the book describes as “the right to breathe without fear.”
The story reflects elements of Orélien’s own background. Born in Gonaïves, Haiti, in 1988, he moved to Montreal in 2010 and later worked as a journalist in Canada.
Orélien has also pointed to the chronology of his writing as evidence against the allegations. He told Libération that he produced the first draft of the novel in 2019, before generative AI writing tools became widely available to the public.
The controversy has nevertheless opened a wider debate over how confidently AI-detection systems can determine whether a piece of writing was generated by a machine. Such tools have become increasingly prominent as schools, universities, publishers and other institutions grapple with the rapid spread of generative AI.
In Orélien’s case, the allegations are based on the results of an AI-detection programme, while the author and his publisher dispute the conclusion and say documentary evidence can establish the book’s authorship.
For now, the controversy has placed unusual scrutiny on a debut novelist whose literary career was beginning with considerable acclaim. What began as recognition for a story rooted in Haiti, migration and the search for safety has become a broader argument about authorship, technology and the limits of AI detection.