AI accusation clouds the season's breakout novel in France

Thélyson Orélien, the Canadian-Haitian writer whose novel «C'était ça ou mourir» has been one of the standout titles of this year's rentrée littéraire, is facing accusations that the book was produced with artificial intelligence, according to Livres Hebdo and France Culture. The claim originated from a small, previously obscure account on X, run by a group of five people who say they relied on the detection tool Pangram to reach their conclusion, France Culture reported.

The accusers say the novel was written "almost entirely" with AI assistance, according to France Culture. The novel had just been recognised with the palmarès des librairies from Livres Hebdo and the prix du Roman Fnac, and is on the Goncourt selection list, per Livres Hebdo.

Orélien has firmly denied the accusation. "Je ne vois pas pourquoi je ferais appel à une machine," he told Livres Hebdo. His publisher, Grasset, said it was not paying attention to "ces rumeurs," according to the same outlet.

France Culture noted that the news agency AFP, which examined the claims, offered a more nuanced take on the accusation, without endorsing it outright. Le Nouvel Obs's Bibliobs devoted a six-question explainer to the controversy, framing it as a defining episode of this year's literary rentrée. El País, covering the affair for Spanish-language readers, described Orélien as one of the season's literary phenomena now caught up in the dispute.

As of this reporting, no independent verification of the AI-detection claim has been published, and both the author and Grasset maintain the book was written without machine assistance.