Boréal ends relationship with writer Thélyson Orélien after confirming AI use in novel

Boréal said the decision followed “new information, confirmed over the past few days” that “indicates that artificial intelligence was used in the writing process” of the novel. The Canadian publisher had said a week earlier that it was standing by the 38-year-old writer.

The publisher's finding

Boréal said it did not know the extent of AI’s use in the writing process “and we will likely never have a definitive answer.” It gathered all the working versions of the novel and hired an outside party to analyse the various drafts. “The results obtained this week revealed traces of AI tags in the metadata of certain documents,” the publisher said. It did not say which documents or tools were involved.

Before commissioning the analysis, Boréal said it had tried to work with Orélien to gather evidence that would prove his innocence. That effort was inconclusive, and Orélien “subsequently announced that he would not provide any further information,” according to the statement.

The Goncourt test

The Goncourt, France's top book prize, removed the novel from its shortlist after tests with the AI detector Pangram indicated a 100 percent probability that it contained computer-generated text. The novel appeared in 2026 under the French title C’etait ca ou mourir, the Straits Times reported.

It sold 65,000 copies in France in the first six weeks after release. Translation had been scheduled in more than 20 countries, and those deals are now stalled or cancelled, the Bangkok Post reported.

Orélien’s response

Orélien called the allegations “slander and heresy” in a statement to AFP earlier in October. “Here and there I did use tools for research, particularly for foreign idioms,” he said. “But not a single sentence in this book was created by a machine, nor the meaning or the structure of a story that comes from my gut.”

Orélien, who fled his native Haiti after a 2010 earthquake, said he began the book in late 2017 “on the corner of a table” and completed a first draft in 2019 of more than 300 pages, several years before services such as ChatGPT appeared. On 21 October he told Libération he had used AI “in the creative process” for “historical research.”

When the allegations first surfaced in September, Orélien said he suspected racism was behind the attacks on him.

In the Libération interview, he said: “I’ve explained everything to those close to me, but at the moment I don’t think my words count for anything.” He said the affair has “gone way too far.”

In response to separate allegations of plagiarism, Orélien admitted to making “unacceptable mistakes” in the past in his writing, without mentioning specifics.