Star Metro - Top French literary prize drops best-selling novel over AI claims

This decision "is driven by the desire to preserve the integrity of the prix Goncourt and the Academy itself, whose central role is to promote and honour literature written by women and men," the Goncourt Academy said.

The decision to remove the book by Thelyson Orelien, a new literary sensation in the French-speaking world, caps a tumultuous week for the 38-year-old following anonymous claims against his debut novel "It Was Either That or Die".

He has denied using AI and has suggested the campaign against him is racially motivated as well as an "attempt to silence my voice."

He also has promised to produce a file that will "prove" that he wrote the book himself.

The Goncourt claimed that "several credible researchers and journalists" had highlighted his prize-winning work was "in all likelihood very largely the product of artificial intelligence."

His use of AI is difficult to prove conclusively -- various AI detectors give different results -- but his reputation has been undercut by evidence of plagiarism published in Quebec where Orelien lives.

Montreal-based La Presse reported Wednesday that a newspaper column written by him in 2013 was "almost entirely" a "lightly edited translation" of an article published a few days earlier by The Philippine Star.

The Radio-Canada media group also found that an Orelien novella which won an audience prize in 2010 contained phrases taken from a French-language book called "Le matin des magiciens" by Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier which was published in 1960.

- Literary phenomenon -

"It Was Either That or Die" tells a dramatised version of Orelien's own life experience: his fictional main character leaves gang-filled Haiti and embarks on a soul-sapping multi-country journey before arriving in Canada.

It has been sold in more than 20 countries including the United States, with Paris-based publisher Grasset reported to have paid 300,000 euros for the French rights.

The turmoil around the book this week underlines the challenge of detecting artificial intelligence, as well as the disruption the technology is causing in the creative industries from music to design and literature.

This case "is unprecedented in France, but it's certainly not the last," Alexandre Gefen, a researcher at the French CNRS research institute and co-author of a recent book on AI in the cultural sector, told AFP.

"The book world is going to have to get used to AI," he added, just as the image and video industries have done in recent years.

Orelien's Canadian publisher, Boreal, suspended his promotional tour on Friday, but continues to stand by his work.

"Unfortunately, at this stage it is impossible for us to either refute or confirm the allegations the author is facing," Boreal said in a statement, while calling on people not to "jump to hasty conclusions".

Grasset also backed him on Tuesday, saying its editors "restate their absolute trust, their admiration for his poetic work".

The allegations against him first emerged on Monday on an anonymous X account with less than 100 followers called "Balance ton Claude" (Expose Your Claude).

The message claiming the book was "almost entirely" written with AI went viral.

French essayist and cultural commentator Samuel Fitoussi, who writes for the right-wing Figaro daily, confirmed Friday that he was part of the collective behind the account.

The conservative writer wrote on X that he feared "after several millennia of civilisation founded on writing, AI will cause the disappearance of reading and writing."

He added that AI text-generators such as Claude or OpenAI "will increasingly be able to... produce exceptional works in near autonomy".

Any authors who produce "copy-paste" material from the companies while claiming it to be their own work "betray the moral pact binding them to their readership," he added.

F.T. Michaud--SMC