French Prize-Winning Author Denies AI-Writing Allegations

BBC reported on Sept. 23 that French literary circles have been shaken by an AI-writing controversy. Haitian-Canadian writer Télios Aurélien won the Fnac Prize for his novel "C'était ça ou mourir" and was shortlisted for the Goncourt and Renaudot prizes. A group called "Balance ton Claude" claimed on social media that the book was "almost entirely" written by AI, citing a Pangram detection tool that allegedly showed "100% AI generation" for tested passages.

Aurélien denied the accusation, saying he has always loved writing and saw no reason to turn to machines. He said he is compiling evidence with his editors to prove authorship, noting that the manuscript's first draft was written in 2019, long before AI text generators became widely available. His publisher Grasset defended him, calling the allegations extremely harmful to a writer with an extraordinary life story.

The novel follows a teacher who flees gang violence in Haiti, endures various adventures, and eventually reaches Canada, where he rediscovers "the right to breathe without fear." The controversy echoes a previous case involving Trinidadian writer Jamil Nazir, whose work faced similar AI authorship claims.

Meanwhile, the reliability of AI detectors like Pangram has been questioned. Researchers note that such tools analyze language patterns and can misclassify human writing as AI-generated, while also potentially missing edited AI text.