Goncourt Academy pulls a bestselling novel over AI-writing claims

The author denies it and says he finished the draft in 2019, before generative AI.

The Goncourt Academy withdrew Thélyson Orélien's novel It Was Either That or Die (C'était ça ou mourir) from consideration for the Prix Goncourt on 25 September 2026, after an anonymous account on X alleged the book had been written almost entirely by artificial intelligence.

The Academy said its decision rested on analyses by credible researchers, whose consistent findings suggested the work was, in all likelihood, largely the product of artificial intelligence. That account comes from Anthony Cordingley, a senior lecturer in English literature at the University of Sydney, writing in The Conversation on 28 September 2026.

Orélien denies using AI. He said he began writing the book in 2017 and finished a draft in 2019, before generative AI was commercially available. The texture of the prose, he argued, is his own, drawn from Haitian and Caribbean traditions. "The images, the repetitions, the rhythms are living speech, they are mine. My traditions are Haitien and Caribbean," he said. He also said he had been the target of numerous racist attacks.

The accusation reached him through an anonymous account, and the case against him rested on textual analysis rather than any proof of a prompt or a program. He was left to answer by pointing to a timeline that predates the tools he is accused of using, and to the specific heritage he says shaped the writing.

Not everyone accepts the premise of the accusation. The novelist Virginie Despentes defended him. "Thélyson Orélien doesn't have to justify himself...He writes however he wants," she said.

The critic Alexandre Gefen compared Orélien to a Renaissance artist working with assistants, and said authorship has always evolved with technology. A painter's studio once shared the labor of a canvas without erasing whose name went on it.

What the case does not settle is how a writer proves the words are their own. The researchers' analyses pointed one way; the author's account of dates, traditions and rhythm pointed the other. For now the prize simply stepped back, leaving the question to whoever faces it next.

Sources

1. A bestselling novel was pulled from a French literary prize after AI accusations, what next? · The Conversation, Artificial Intelligence