Quebec author admits past plagiarism, denies AI use in novel

Thélyson Orélien, a Quebec-based author, admitted on October 13, 2026, to plagiarism in some of his earlier works but denied using artificial intelligence (AI) for his acclaimed novel C’était ça ou mourir. The allegations against the book first emerged last month when an anonymous user shared screenshots from AI detection tool Pangram suggesting that the book was entirely generated by machines. Orélien, who began writing the novel in 2017 and completed a draft by 2019, maintains that he started his work long before widespread use of AI for writing, and no sentence was created by a machine. His publisher, Éditions du Boréal, released a statement where Orélien apologized for past mistakes but denied the AI claims. As a result, the prestigious French literature prize, the Académie Goncourt, removed C’était ça ou mourir from its selection list, and promotional activities by Éditions du Boréal were suspended.