The publisher's reversal
Les Éditions du Boréal, the Canadian publisher of Haitian-Canadian writer Thélyson Orélien, has confirmed that artificial intelligence was used in the writing of the novel C'était ça ou mourir. The news, reported by the Guardian, marks a reversal of the position taken just a week earlier, when the publishing house had said it wanted to support the 38-year-old author, who had rejected the accusations.
According to Boréal's statement, new information confirmed in recent days indicates that AI was used in the writing process. The publisher therefore announced the end of its professional relationship with Orélien, without specifying to what extent the tool was used.
The evidence and the limits of the verification
Boréal collected all working versions of the novel and commissioned an external party to analyze the various drafts. According to the publisher, the results revealed traces of AI markers in the metadata of some documents. Before this verification, the publisher had tried to work with the author to gather evidence useful to prove his innocence: the attempt did not produce conclusive results, and Orélien later communicated that he would not provide further information.
The publisher itself admits that it does not know the extent of the AI use and that it probably cannot arrive at a definitive answer. The certain fact, according to the material, concerns the presence of traces in the metadata, not a complete reconstruction of the creative process.
The challenges and withdrawal from the Goncourt
The novel, dedicated to the theme of migration, was intended for translation into more than twenty countries. However, it had been withdrawn from the Prix Goncourt list, France's most prestigious literary prize, after tests by the Pangram detector had indicated a 100% probability of computer-generated text. Orélien called the accusations slander and heresy, claiming that he had used tools only for research, in particular for foreign idiomatic expressions, but that he had never had a machine write a sentence.
On Wednesday the author reiterated to Libération that he had used AI in the creative process for historical research, adding that he had explained everything to those close to him but that he believed his words currently counted for nothing. He also stated that he had begun the book at the end of 2017 and completed a first draft of more than 300 pages in 2019, years before the spread of services such as ChatGPT. Orélien fled Haiti after the 2010 earthquake.
Plagiarism and open questions
In response to separate accusations of plagiarism, the author admitted unacceptable errors made in the past in his writing, without indicating specific cases, and wrote that admiring someone does not give one the right to claim others' texts as one's own. The distinction between the use of research tools and the generation of content remains open: the publisher relies on traces in the metadata, while the author claims authorship of the structure and meaning of the story. The case shows how difficult it is to establish with certainty the boundaries of AI use in a literary work.
