The Canadian publisher of "C'était ça ou mourir," a novel dropped from the Goncourt Prize's first-round shortlist, said it had confirmed that artificial intelligence was used in writing the book and was ending its relationship with the author.
Boréal, a Montreal-based publisher, said in a statement on the 21st that it was terminating its professional relationship with Haitian-Canadian writer Téllison Aurélien, 38. According to AFP, Boréal collected every working version of the manuscript and sent them to an outside organization for analysis. Results released this week showed traces of AI tags in the metadata of some documents, the publisher said. It added that the extent of the AI use could not be determined and that "we will probably never get a definitive answer."
The novel follows a teacher from Haiti who flees violence on a perilous journey to Canada. Boréal published it in Canada in March, and French publisher Grasset released it in August. The book won the Fnac Prize and the Prix Méduse, and AFP reported that translation rights have been secured in 20 languages.
The allegations surfaced on the 21st of last month, when an anonymous account on X, formerly Twitter, called "Balance ton Claude" cited analysis from the AI detector Pangram. The account later disclosed that essayist Samuel Fitoussi runs it with others. On the 25th of last month, the Académie Goncourt removed the novel from its first-round list of 16 titles, citing analysis by researchers and journalists. The winner will be announced on Nov. 4. Some experts, however, question the reliability of AI detection tools.
Aurélien has denied using AI. In a statement sent to AFP on the 13th of this month, he said he had used research tools to find idiomatic expressions in foreign languages but that no machine had written the sentences in the book. He told the French daily Libération that he had used AI for historical research. He also said he began writing in late 2017 and completed a draft of more than 300 pages in 2019. He acknowledged that taking another writer's sentences without attribution in a piece published shortly after he moved to Canada was an "unacceptable mistake."
Boréal halted promotional activities on the 24th of last month and said on the 14th of this month that the book would remain on sale in bookstores and that it continued to support the author. The publisher reversed course on the 21st after Aurélien stopped cooperating with the evidence-gathering effort. Aurélien was born in Gonaïves, Haiti, in 1988 and has lived in Canada since the 2010 earthquake.