Why AI allegations risk turning a Canadian literary sensation into a French book scandal - Toronto Star

On Monday, Thélyson Orélien’s book won the 2026 Prix du Roman Fnac, a major French book retailer. 

Thélyson Orélien poses outside the Olympic Stadium in Montreal, Thursday, August 3, 2017. On Monday, Orélien’s book won the 2026 Prix du Roman Fnac, a major French book retailer. 

The Canadian sensation of this fall’s French literary calendar is billed as the poetic account of a Haitian migrant’s journey to Quebec carrying a plastic bag with nothing more than his degree, a book of poems, a photo of his mother and a clean pair of underwear.

But there are allegations of a dark secret lurking within its pages.

The book, by author Thélyson Orélien, who left his native Haiti after the country’s devastating 2010 earthquake and now lives in Ottawa, “speaks the language of exile, a language that is learned ‘without grammar, without a dictionary, only with bones and skin.’”

So promises the back-cover blurb of the Canadian edition of “C’était ça ou mourir” (It was that or die), published in March by Montreal’s Éditions du Boréal.

On Monday, Orélien’s book won the 2026 Prix du Roman Fnac, a major French book retailer. It was a first victory on the path to the Prix Goncourt, the country’s most prestigious literary prize, for which it was longlisted earlier this month.

But celebration quickly turned to scandal after an anonymous social media account posted allegations that the novel was penned “almost entirely by artificial intelligence.”

Administrators of the account say they plugged passages of the book into an online AI detector, created by Pangram Labs, a U.S.-based company that says it is on a mission is to ensure that artificial intelligence “will be a net positive on the world.”

“Wouldn’t it have been more honest,” the damning post asked, “for the author to credit his co-author?”

The Star did a similar test, running the first page of the book through Pangram, which judged it to have been 100 per cent AI-generated. Page 171 — selected randomly — was judged a mixed bag: 59 per cent written by AI, 41 per cent by a human.

The AI detector in that second analysis identified which segments it concluded were written by computer and by human. But it provided no explanation about how it arrived at its result.

A second detector, Winston AI, concluded that the first page of Orélien’s novel was “2% human.”

“The content closely aligns with patterns typical of AI-generated text,” the result read.

Orélien has taken down his social media accounts and his personal blog, but is still scheduled to participate in a promotional event in Paris on Sunday. He has denied the allegations.

“I have always enjoyed creating and writing. There’s no reason why I would use a machine to do it,” he told French newspaper Libération in an article published Tuesday evening.

There was no immediate response to requests for an interview with the author, or for comment from Boreal or Grasset, respectively his Canadian and French publishers.

“The images, the repetition, the rhythms are a living voice and they are mine. My traditions are Haitian and Caribbean,” he continued in the Libération interview, suggesting that the AI detector was “accustomed to French literary traditions and classic authors.”

The Star also ran the opening page of the Goncourt-winning 2021 book La Plus Secrète Mémoire des hommes, written by the Senegalese-born Mohamed Mbougar Sarr. The text was judged to be 100 per cent human.

Orélien is reportedly in the process of preparing a formal defence of his professional and creative integrity, and of his novel, which is currently being translated into 35 languages for publication in non-Francophone markets.

In a radio interview with France Inter earlier this month, he revealed some of the similarities and differences between his own experience leaving his native Haiti and that of his protagonist, Jonas Dorléon.

His character is a history and geography teacher who flees the country to escape the threats of raging gang violence.

Orélien was in his early 20s and studying law in Port-au-Prince, when the ground started to shake on the afternoon of Jan. 12, 2010, with the earthquake claiming nearly 300,000 lives.

By a stroke of luck, he was across the street at the moment of the earthquake, drawn by an open Wi-Fi signal.

Both author and protagonist left Haiti, first for the Dominican Republic, with the goal of reaching Canada, which held the promise of family members and support as they built new lives.

But he said the inspiration for the prize-winning novel came a decade ago when thousands of undocumented migrants living in the United States began crossing the border into Canada, fearful of being deported back to their home country by newly elected U.S. President Donald Trump.

In 2017, he was quoted in a Star news report about migrants who were being temporarily sheltered in Montreal’s Olympic Stadium, identifying himself as a 29-year-old blogger and library worker who had come to offer help.

In August, Orélien told the French newspaper, Le Point, how he had been inspired to travel extensively through New York, Ohio, Michigan and Indiana to meet with migrants and understand their experience.

“I chose fiction to depict this reality and to avoid betraying those who confided in me,” he said. “After it was published, I met people who congratulated me because they didn’t find what they had told me word-for-word, but they saw themselves in the story.”

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Late Tuesday, Orélien’s accusers urged critics to “go easy on the attacks” against the Canadian writer.

“We flagged this book because it has been successful, but it is far from the only one,” the account administrators wrote on X.

“Given the scale of the scandal, what we should take away from this controversy is that the majority attaches great importance to authenticity. If you think you are adding value by having your works written by AI, go ahead! But at least, mention it, so as not to betray your readers. Because it is the lie that is morally reprehensible.”

Allan Woods is a Paris-based staff reporter for the Star. He covers global and national affairs. Follow him on X: @WoodsAllan.