The French literary world has been thrown into turmoil following explosive allegations that Haitian-Canadian author Thélyson Orélien used artificial intelligence to draft his breakout debut novel, C’était ça ou mourir (It Was Either That or Die).
The controversy erupted just as Orélien secured the prestigious Prix du Roman Fnac. The storm began when an anonymous X account, Balance ton Claude, claimed that excerpts from the manuscript tested through the AI-detection program Pangram yielded a 100 percent probability of artificial generation.
The novel chronicles a Haitian teacher’s perilous flight from gang violence to eventual safety in Canada. While independent verifications by news outlets using various detection programs yielded mixed and often contradictory results—with some analyzers pointing to human authorship—the fallout quickly widened. Compounding the crisis, Canadian media subsequently uncovered historical instances of alleged plagiarism in Orélien’s past journalistic work.
Orélien has vehemently denied utilizing AI, maintaining that the manuscript’s rhythmic style and imagery stem strictly from his Haitian and Caribbean heritage. He noted that the initial draft was formulated in 2019, well before modern generative tools achieved widespread use.
His French publisher, Grasset, has strongly defended the work as an authentic and powerful creation. Meanwhile, literary bodies like the Académie Goncourt have urged caution against swift public condemnation, even as promotional schedules and festival appearances face cancellations amid a fierce global debate over technology’s role in modern literature.
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