{"id":613078,"date":"2026-09-27T05:14:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-27T05:14:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/613078\/"},"modified":"2026-09-27T05:14:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-27T05:14:14","slug":"frances-prestigious-goncourt-prize-drops-novel-after-author-accused-of-using-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/613078\/","title":{"rendered":"France\u2019s prestigious Goncourt prize drops novel after author accused of using AI"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph-elevate inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph_elevate\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/cmui36m1t002u28p5djm1h7av@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\">\n            The organisers of the prestigious Goncourt literary prize said on Friday they had removed a smash-hit novel by Haitian-Canadian author Thelyson Orelien from their longlist after accusations he used AI to write it.\n    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-elevate inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph_elevate\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/cmui36rux00013b6rcet8j0ry@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\">\n            Orelien denied using AI to write \u201cC\u2019etait Ca ou Mourir\u201d (\u201cIt Was Either That or Die\u201d) as the allegations ignited a debate about race, literary merit and originality that has roiled the French literary establishment.\n    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-elevate inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph_elevate\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/cmui36rux00023b6rme8to1eq@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\">\n            The accusations about AI use were made this week by a little-known X account \u201cBalance ton Claude.\u201d Essayist Samuel Fitoussi later claimed ownership of the account, saying he managed it with other unidentified individuals.\n    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-elevate inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph_elevate\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/cmui36rux00033b6rcmvmu26e@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\">\n            The AI accusations were followed by reports that Orelien had committed plagiarism in earlier works. La Presse said that a 2012 short story by Orelien had plagiarized passages from a book by French author Louis Pauwels, while a 2013 opinion piece copied from The Philippine Star newspaper.\n    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-elevate inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph_elevate\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/cmui36rux00043b6rhm2zoihb@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\">\n            Orelien has yet to respond to those accusations, and did not respond to a request for comment on Friday.\n    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-elevate inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph_elevate\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/cmui36rux00053b6r9lpr6qd8@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\">\n            The Paris-based Academie Goncourt said it had taken note of the AI and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2026\/08\/06\/uk\/black-professor-cambridge-plagiarism-resigns-intl\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">plagiarism<\/a> accusations, and had decided to remove his novel \u201cto preserve the integrity of the Goncourt Prize and that of the Academie, whose central role is to promote and honour literature written by women and men.\u201d\n    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-elevate inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph_elevate\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/cmui36rux00063b6r27dsywar@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\">\n            The Academie said it hoped its decision would show it was fully against the \u201ccreation of texts generated with the assistance of AI,\u201d adding it would make no further comment before October 6, when it will announce its shortlist.\n    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-elevate inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph_elevate\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/cmui36rux00073b6rmgmqv6oq@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\">\n            The debut novel by the Haitian-born author tells the story of a Haitian migrant who travels north through Latin America before ending up in Canada. It has won a host of other literary awards, and was due to be translated into multiple languages.\n    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-elevate inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph_elevate\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/cmui36rux00083b6r5refsxyf@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\">\n            His French and Canadian publishers initially offered Orelien their full support over the AI allegations. They did not respond to requests for comment on Friday.\n    <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-elevate inline-placeholder vossi-paragraph_elevate\" data-uri=\"cms.cnn.com\/_components\/paragraph\/instances\/cmui36rux00093b6re9wnskdb@published\" data-editable=\"text\" data-component-name=\"paragraph\" data-article-gutter=\"true\">\n            \u201cBalance ton Claude\u201d said that running passages through AI detection tool Pangram showed the novel \u201cwas written almost entirely by artificial intelligence\u201d. Some experts say the reliability of AI detection tools is questionable.\n    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The organisers of the prestigious Goncourt literary prize said on Friday they had removed a smash-hit novel by&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":613079,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[365,363,364,111,139,69,145],"class_list":["post-613078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=613078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}