# Uproar in France over award-winning author accused of using AI **URL:** \ **Category:** And Now For That Latte\ **Created:** [September 24, 2026, 10:12pm UTC](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/t/uproar-in-france-over-award-winning-author-accused-of-using-ai/154780 "2026-09-24T22:12:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![FanLi](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/user_avatar/forum.literatureandlatte.com/fanli/32/39924_2.png) [@FanLi](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/u/FanLi)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2026, 10:12pm UTC](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/t/uproar-in-france-over-award-winning-author-accused-of-using-ai/154780/1 "2026-09-24T22:12:44Z")
> **[Thélyson Orélien: French uproar over author accused of using AI](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ck7v4y45893go)** > > Canadian-Haitian writer Thélyson Orélien has just been awarded the Prix du Roman Fnac for his first novel. ---
**Author:** ![Vincent\_Vincent](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/user_avatar/forum.literatureandlatte.com/vincent_vincent/32/19680_2.png) [@Vincent\_Vincent](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/u/Vincent_Vincent)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2026, 10:26pm UTC](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/t/uproar-in-france-over-award-winning-author-accused-of-using-ai/154780/2 "2026-09-24T22:26:59Z")
He’s a genuine cheater. He’s been caught having plagiarized, word for word, some of his previous publications. He’s finished. His situation is already way beyond whether he used AI or not. His publisher just announced today that they are cancelling the promotion of his new novel. ![image](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/uploads/default/original/3X/c/7/c7e5f1f122c304a781c8d17e150e65e68bb75cbc.jpeg) What the above screenshot shows is that he plagiarized word for word, all the way down to the very punctuation, chunks of a short-story from someone else, written in the '60s – That’s for a previous award winning publication of his. People are digging the archives, now, and this came up, among other plagiarism cases concerning him. It is all blowing up, for him. (I guess that with such plagiarism, it was bound to happen, sooner or later.) [https://www.journaldemontreal.com/2026/09/23/accuse-davoir-ecrit-un-roman-avec-lia-des-cas-de-plagiat-reviennent-hanter-thelyson-orelien](https://www.journaldemontreal.com/2026/09/23/accuse-davoir-ecrit-un-roman-avec-lia-des-cas-de-plagiat-reviennent-hanter-thelyson-orelien) ---
**Author:** ![November\_Sierra](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/user_avatar/forum.literatureandlatte.com/november_sierra/32/41086_2.png) [@November\_Sierra](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/u/November_Sierra)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2026, 10:30pm UTC](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/t/uproar-in-france-over-award-winning-author-accused-of-using-ai/154780/3 "2026-09-24T22:30:36Z")
> [@Vincent\_Vincent](#): > > His publisher just announced today that they cancelled the promotion of his new novel. Do they still sell it? I mean, at least they don’t have to pay him… ---
**Author:** ![Vincent\_Vincent](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/user_avatar/forum.literatureandlatte.com/vincent_vincent/32/19680_2.png) [@Vincent\_Vincent](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/u/Vincent_Vincent)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2026, 10:33pm UTC](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/t/uproar-in-france-over-award-winning-author-accused-of-using-ai/154780/4 "2026-09-24T22:33:38Z")
I don’t know. (Probably they are gonna pull out the book off the shelves, I’d expect.) But he was ironically one of the voices of the authors against AI. ---
**Author:** ![November\_Sierra](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/user_avatar/forum.literatureandlatte.com/november_sierra/32/41086_2.png) [@November\_Sierra](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/u/November_Sierra)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2026, 10:34pm UTC](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/t/uproar-in-france-over-award-winning-author-accused-of-using-ai/154780/5 "2026-09-24T22:34:33Z")
Well, maybe he vibe wrote his masterpiece. ---
**Author:** ![Vincent\_Vincent](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/user_avatar/forum.literatureandlatte.com/vincent_vincent/32/19680_2.png) [@Vincent\_Vincent](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/u/Vincent_Vincent)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2026, 10:54pm UTC](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/t/uproar-in-france-over-award-winning-author-accused-of-using-ai/154780/6 "2026-09-24T22:54:29Z")
Say no to plagiarism, kids. (and drugs, of course.) ---
**Author:** ![FanLi](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/user_avatar/forum.literatureandlatte.com/fanli/32/39924_2.png) [@FanLi](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/u/FanLi)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2026, 11:15pm UTC](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/t/uproar-in-france-over-award-winning-author-accused-of-using-ai/154780/8 "2026-09-24T23:15:27Z")
I go out of my way to avoid that and cite everything. ---
**Author:** ![Vincent\_Vincent](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/user_avatar/forum.literatureandlatte.com/vincent_vincent/32/19680_2.png) [@Vincent\_Vincent](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/u/Vincent_Vincent)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2026, 11:17pm UTC](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/t/uproar-in-france-over-award-winning-author-accused-of-using-ai/154780/9 "2026-09-24T23:17:32Z")
There are inaccuracies in the article you’ve linked. But overall that’s about it. Up until today – new elements surfacing. (The article got wrong saying it is about his first novel. It should read “new” novel. He wrote others, in the past. He won prizes and all.) [EDIT. My mistake after all. He wrote a bunch of stuff before, but no novels – it was all short stories and poetry. This was to be his first full-fledge novel.] ---
**Author:** ![November\_Sierra](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/user_avatar/forum.literatureandlatte.com/november_sierra/32/41086_2.png) [@November\_Sierra](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/u/November_Sierra)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2026, 11:47pm UTC](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/t/uproar-in-france-over-award-winning-author-accused-of-using-ai/154780/10 "2026-09-24T23:47:49Z")
There should be an own award category for this kind of hilarious undoing. So, in the spirit of this thread, I created one. All by myself. Not using “A.I.” in any shape or form. ![award](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/uploads/default/original/3X/5/a/5ae69d99f88d039f3e1ca097911247eb7aedb39d.png) ---
**Author:** ![auxbuss](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/user_avatar/forum.literatureandlatte.com/auxbuss/32/115_2.png) [@auxbuss](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/u/auxbuss)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2026, 7:52pm UTC](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/t/uproar-in-france-over-award-winning-author-accused-of-using-ai/154780/11 "2026-09-25T19:52:25Z")
Apropos: > **[Novelist accused of using AI to write book removed from French prize list](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/sep/25/thelyson-orelien-goncourt-prize-france)** > > Thélyson Orélien had been in the running to win a top literary prize before the AI claim emerged on social media ---
**Author:** ![auxbuss](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/user_avatar/forum.literatureandlatte.com/auxbuss/32/115_2.png) [@auxbuss](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/u/auxbuss)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2026, 8:16pm UTC](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/t/uproar-in-france-over-award-winning-author-accused-of-using-ai/154780/12 "2026-09-25T20:16:40Z")
While I’d never copy a paragraph from another writer – or a sentence, for that matter – I borrow ideas all the time. I also take ideas from poetry. I’ve quoted Apollinaire, changed one word, and apologised. But I always, always add the attribution to my acknowledgement’s document. I do this even for works far out of copyright: Milton, for example or Frederick Douglas or the aforementioned Apollinaire. I’ve even acknowledge pieces of software. Only this week, I used “standing sixteen one or two with eyes wild and green” from Christy Moore’s song Ride On when describing a stallion central to the plot. Why? Because it’s a beautiful line that wouldn’t leave my head. Writing as I do, with ideas coming in from all directions, is both blank page and collage. My job is to edit and edit till the seams are invisible. Enjoy Christy singing the words I stole: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/7MJRmA99kHc/maxresdefault.jpg "Christy Moore - Ride On (Official Live Video)") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MJRmA99kHc) ---
**Author:** ![KB](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/e47774/32.png) [@KB](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/u/KB)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2026, 9:17pm UTC](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/t/uproar-in-france-over-award-winning-author-accused-of-using-ai/154780/13 "2026-09-25T21:17:38Z")
> [@auxbuss](#): > > While I’d never copy a paragraph from another writer – or a sentence, for that matter – I borrow ideas all the time. I also take ideas from poetry. Which is all surely fine and comes under allusion rather than plagiarism. For instance when Lucy leaves Cecil in _A Room with a View_ and Forster says, “nothing in his love became him like the leaving of it” and Oliver Stallybrass’s footnotes tell me that this is an echo of Macbeth, where the line was “nothing in his life…” (I re-read RWAV a couple of weeks ago, which is why this particular quote comes to mind.) The example quotes in the case given in this thread seem to go a bit further than allusion though, alas. Even though the charges seem justified in this case, however, the self-appointed AI-detection police are a bit of a worry, because it’s inevitable that writers are going to be accused of using AI who are innocent of the charge. Imagine having to prove your innocence by showing everybody all of your early, embarrassing notes. Yikes. ---
**Author:** ![Rayz](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/user_avatar/forum.literatureandlatte.com/rayz/32/15848_2.png) [@Rayz](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/u/Rayz)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2026, 8:15am UTC](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/t/uproar-in-france-over-award-winning-author-accused-of-using-ai/154780/14 "2026-09-26T08:15:10Z")
> [@KB](#): > > The example quotes in the case given in this thread seem to go a bit further than allusion though, alas. Even though the charges seem justified in this case, however, the self-appointed AI-detection police are a bit of a worry, because it’s inevitable that writers are going to be accused of using AI who are innocent of the charge. Imagine that we’re now in a place where we’re using AI to hunt down uses of AI. What can possibly go wrong? Though I think the AI thing is just a handy smokescreen. From the Guardian article: > An anonymous account called Balance ton Claude – a reference to Anthropic’s AI agent – said it had fed the novel into the AI detection software Pangram and found it to be “almost entirely” written by artificial intelligence. > > Questions have been raised over Pangram’s accuracy, and French media outlets have found other AI detection programmes that identified It Was That or Die as very probably written by a human. > > Orélien, 38, has denied the allegation, saying it was racially motivated. “I’ve always loved creating and writing,” he said. “I don’t see why I would use a machine.” My thoughts on writing exactly, but that doesn’t mean he’s not lying. So what about that anonymous account? > The author of the anonymous X account was later [identified on the pages of the centre-right newspaper Le Figaro](https://www.lefigaro.fr/culture/qui-se-cache-derriere-le-compte-balance-ton-claude-a-l-origine-de-la-chute-de-thelyson-orelien-20260924) as one of its own columnists, Samuel Fitoussi, the author of an essay against “wokeism” on film and TV. Righty-ho then. > On Wednesday Philippe Claudel, the Académie Goncourt’s president, had urged caution over the allegations. But separate accusations of plagiarism against Orélien published in French media appeared to have caused a change of heart. If he is lying and he has copied work wholesale then he deserves everything that’s coming to him. And guilty or not, I hope he has the resilience to bear it. But as in the case of Jason Arday, let’s not pretend this is about what he has or hasn’t done. It never is. ---
**Author:** ![FanLi](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/user_avatar/forum.literatureandlatte.com/fanli/32/39924_2.png) [@FanLi](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/u/FanLi)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2026, 3:12pm UTC](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/t/uproar-in-france-over-award-winning-author-accused-of-using-ai/154780/16 "2026-09-26T15:12:44Z")
> [@Rayz](#): > > But as in the case of Jason Arday, let’s not pretend this is about what he has or hasn’t done. > > It never is. what …… was …..it…… ? ---
**Author:** ![Vincent\_Vincent](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/user_avatar/forum.literatureandlatte.com/vincent_vincent/32/19680_2.png) [@Vincent\_Vincent](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/u/Vincent_Vincent)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2026, 5:37pm UTC](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/t/uproar-in-france-over-award-winning-author-accused-of-using-ai/154780/18 "2026-09-26T17:37:36Z")
I think the point was that it is completely unrelated and changes nothing to anything. He could’ve been purple with orange dots that it wouldn’t have made any difference. ---
**Author:** ![RevoTiLlor](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/user_avatar/forum.literatureandlatte.com/revotillor/32/34863_2.png) [@RevoTiLlor](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/u/RevoTiLlor)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2026, 8:21am UTC](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/t/uproar-in-france-over-award-winning-author-accused-of-using-ai/154780/20 "2026-09-27T08:21:01Z")
> [@Vincent\_Vincent](#): > > He’s been caught having plagiarized, word for word, some of his previous publications. This made me wonder what they’d have done with Raymond Chandler today. His early novels all contain portions of some of his short stories published in pulps years before—and his Philip Marlowe is an amalgam of his earlier detectives. Personally, I don’t believe in wasting writing, good or bad, so I often revisit some of the NANOWRIMO stuff I rushed through that’s riddled with plot holes and inconsistencies, and integrate it where I feel it would best fit into something current. ---
**Author:** ![November\_Sierra](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/user_avatar/forum.literatureandlatte.com/november_sierra/32/41086_2.png) [@November\_Sierra](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/u/November_Sierra)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2026, 11:46am UTC](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/t/uproar-in-france-over-award-winning-author-accused-of-using-ai/154780/21 "2026-09-27T11:46:03Z")
> [@RevoTiLlor](#): > > This made me wonder what they’d have done with Raymond Chandler today. His early novels all contain portions of some of his short stories … Unless he stole from other writers in his earlier work, I suspect nothing would happen. ---
**Author:** ![Vincent\_Vincent](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/user_avatar/forum.literatureandlatte.com/vincent_vincent/32/19680_2.png) [@Vincent\_Vincent](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/u/Vincent_Vincent)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2026, 12:41pm UTC](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/t/uproar-in-france-over-award-winning-author-accused-of-using-ai/154780/22 "2026-09-27T12:41:37Z")
That’s completely fine. It is your work, your words, you can do whatever you want. I suppose my formulation was inaccurate. What I actually meant is this : He translated to French an article (opinion column) titled “Falling from pedestals” written by Dean Andy Bautista for the Philippine Star, and then submitted it under his name to a French-Canadian major newspaper who published it. There never was a mention of the source. He said he wrote it. And now people find out that his earlier work is just about in the same spirit. (That’s what the screenshot I posted from _Le Journal de Montréal_ shows. He claimed a short-story from the 60’s (written by someone else, he wasn’t yet born) as his own ; leaving whole paragraphs as-is. This (“his” short-story) was published in 2012, and now people are digging, and finding out what he did. He got away with it – he even won respectable prizes (6) – for 14+ years.) If you have no problem claiming other people’s work as your own, what motivation, exactly, do you _not_ have to have AI write your novel for you ? His early defence (some days ago – when it all started) was that he’s always liked writing, that he had no reason to use AI to begin with. The fan was spinning fast, and the shit was actually huge. (Or abnormally big, at the very least.) . . . . . . . . . . . Some people will be disappointed to see that the case drifts away from the use of AI to produce novels and all. For my part I think it actually shows what kind of writers do use AI to write for them. ---
**Author:** ![RevoTiLlor](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/user_avatar/forum.literatureandlatte.com/revotillor/32/34863_2.png) [@RevoTiLlor](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/u/RevoTiLlor)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2026, 1:37pm UTC](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/t/uproar-in-france-over-award-winning-author-accused-of-using-ai/154780/23 "2026-09-27T13:37:28Z")
I raised the point in the context of the original post I quoted. Anything is possible with revisionist history on the rise. ---
**Author:** ![November\_Sierra](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/user_avatar/forum.literatureandlatte.com/november_sierra/32/41086_2.png) [@November\_Sierra](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/u/November_Sierra)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2026, 2:04pm UTC](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/t/uproar-in-france-over-award-winning-author-accused-of-using-ai/154780/24 "2026-09-27T14:04:18Z")
Looks like a simple misunderstanding to me, Vincent isn’t exactly known for rewriting history. 🙂 [Next page](https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/t/uproar-in-france-over-award-winning-author-accused-of-using-ai/154780.md?page=2)