Boréal drops Thélyson Orélien over AI in novel writing
The Boréal Thélyson Orélien AI dispute ended on Wednesday when Canadian publisher Les Éditions du Boréal said a further investigation confirmed artificial intelligence was used in the writing of his novel C'était ça ou mourir, and that it was ending its professional relationship with the novelist.
Boréal drops Thélyson Orélien over AI in novel writing
The publisher's decision
Les Éditions du Boréal said on Wednesday that new information, confirmed over the past few days, indicated that artificial intelligence had been used in the writing process of Thélyson Orélien's novel C'était ça ou mourir (It Was Either That or Die). The Canadian publisher announced it was ending its professional relationship with the 38-year-old Haitian Canadian novelist, who had been its top-selling writer. Only last week, Boréal had said it was standing by the writer, pending a further investigation into the AI question.
What the investigation found
The publisher gathered all the working versions of the novel and hired an outside party to analyse the various drafts. Boréal said the results obtained this week revealed traces of AI tags in the metadata of certain documents. The publisher added that it did not know the extent of AI's use in the writing process, saying a definitive answer would likely never be found.
Before commissioning the analysis, Boréal had tried to work with Orélien to gather evidence to prove his innocence. According to the publisher, the effort was inconclusive, and Orélien then announced that he would not provide any further information.
The author's response
Orélien has consistently denied the allegations. In a statement to Agence France-Presse earlier this month, he called them "slander and heresy" and said that while he had used tools for research, particularly foreign idioms, "not a single sentence in this book was created by a machine".
I've explained everything to those close to me, but at the moment I don't think my words count for anything.
On Wednesday, Orélien told the French newspaper Libération that he had used AI in the creative process for historical research. He said he began writing the book in late 2017 and completed a first draft of more than 300 pages in 2019, before AI services such as ChatGPT existed, and added that his situation had gone way too far.
The fallout for the novel
The controversy has already cost the book its place in French literary honours and its international rollout:
- The novel was withdrawn from the Prix Goncourt list last month after tests with AI detector Pangram indicated a 100% probability it contained computer-generated text.
- The book, which is about migration, had been scheduled for translation in more than 20 countries.
- Orélien fled his native Haiti after the 2010 earthquake that struck the island, already affected by poverty and unrest.
- Responding to separate plagiarism allegations, he admitted making "unacceptable mistakes" in his past writing without giving specifics, writing that he was just over 20 at the time, but that admiring someone does not give the right to claim texts that are not one's own.
Boréal said the extent of AI's use may never be definitively established. Orélien, according to Libération, feels his words no longer count.
