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To watch this content, you may need to disable it on this site. Cover image: A copie of the book "C'etait ca ou mourir", a novel by author Thelyson Orélien, is displayed on a table inside a bookstore in Paris, France, September 22, 2026. © Sarah Meyssonnier, France still very much takes its literary prize-giving season seriously. So when a Haitian-born Canadian writer was accused of infusing his best-selling breakout novel with artificial intelligence, it got ugly in a hurry.
We wade into the Thélyson Orélien affair with its subsequent accusations of racism, previous plagiarism by the author and doubts over the accuracy of AI verification tool Pangram. Interesting, some still love Orélien's book. The scandal is all the more heartbreaking for publishers because "It Was Either That or Die" has sold 40,000 copies since its release, this as book sales have collapsed dramatically since the commercial launch of ChatGPT four short years ago.
Read morePrix Goncourt drops Canadian-Haitian writer from top French literary prize list over AI claims All this begs an even broader question: most of humanity only started reading and writing in the past century. Is that period over already? Future generations will certainly know how to read street signs and subtitles on a video.
But if we're no longer stopping what we do to engage meaningfully with the written word, how will that change us all? _Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Juliette Laffont, Ilayda Habip, Charles Wente._ Prix Goncourt drops Canadian-Haitian writer from top French literary prize list over AI claims Could a controversial award-winning short story signal a new era of literary 'AI slop'? Row over bestseller fuels fear over future of literature Ethiopia back to civil war? Horn of Africa fears spillover effect of renewed fighting Still the same far right?
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