Thélyson Orélien admits plagiarism but denies using AI for his novel C'était ça ou mourir
Canadian writer Thélyson Orélien apologised for plagiarism in a text sent to AFP on 13 October 2026, but insisted that no sentence of his novel was machine-written. The Goncourt Academy had already withdrawn the novel from its prize selection.
Denial of AI use and apology for plagiarism
Canadian writer Thélyson Orélien, who also holds Haitian nationality, sent a text to AFP on Tuesday, 13 October 2026, in which he wrote that no sentence of his novel C'était ça ou mourir was created by a machine. He called the suggestion that the book was written with artificial intelligence slander, while acknowledging that he had sometimes used tools for research. He also apologised for plagiarism, admitting to "unacceptable errors" in copying texts by established authors after he arrived in Canada. Ouest France reports that the text is titled "Ce roman que j'ai écrit".
How the accusations emerged
The controversy started when an anonymous account on X accused Orélien of having written the book "almost entirely" with AI. Ouest France reports that the suspicions emerged from 21 September and that the AI-based detection tool Pangram flagged the text. Separate plagiarism complaints concern texts published more than a decade ago in Canada. Three weeks after the accusations, BFMTV reports, Orélien had interrupted the promotion of the book, which it describes as the bestseller of the autumn season.
Goncourt Academy withdrawal
Four days after the suspicions emerged, the Académie Goncourt withdrew the novel from its selection for this year's prize.
- Suspicions of AI use in the novel begin to emerge
- Académie Goncourt withdraws the novel from its prize selection
- Orélien's text to AFP denies AI use and apologises for plagiarism
- Goncourt prize scheduled to be awarded
