The Académie Goncourt removed Thelyson Orelien’s debut novel, “It Was Either That or Die,” from its longlist after AI-use accusations and reports of plagiarism in earlier works, citing the prize’s integrity. Orelien denied using AI and has not responded to the plagiarism claims.
La Presse reported that a 2012 short story by Orelien had plagiarized passages from a book by French author Louis Pauwels, and that a 2013 opinion piece copied from The Philippine Star. Orelien had not responded to the allegations as of Friday.
The AI allegation came from the X account “Balance ton Claude”; essayist Samuel Fitoussi later said he ran it with other unidentified people. The account said Pangram detection found the novel was “written almost entirely” by AI, though some experts question such tools’ reliability. The academy said it would make no further comment before announcing its shortlist on October 6.
