Éditions du Boréal ends ties with Thélyson Orélien after finding AI use in his novel

Publisher ends its contract

Éditions du Boréal, the Canadian publisher of the novel, announced on Wednesday, 21 October, that it had ended its professional relationship with Thélyson Orélien. In its statement it said new information confirmed in recent days showed artificial intelligence had been used to write C'était ça ou mourir, although the author had repeatedly assured the house he had never used it for the book. The publisher will neither reprint the novel nor release any further titles by him. Orélien was told of the decision only minutes before the statement went out. The book had sold more than 65,000 copies according to 7sur7, and ABC reported it was due to be sold in more than 20 countries.

How the allegations developed

The accusations began in late September, when the X account Balance ton Claude claimed to have detected heavy AI use in the novel. Orélien rejected them, and on 14 October he again denied using AI to write the book. A week before the break, the publisher said it backed him and had no evidence of AI use, after the two had assembled a file documenting his creative process. When he declined to provide anything further, the publisher commissioned an external analysis of all working versions of the novel. Its findings, reported this week, showed traces of AI tags in the metadata of some documents. Analyses carried out with the Pangram detector gave a 100% probability that the text contained computer-generated content, and the novel was removed from the Goncourt Prize finalist list.

The author's response

Orélien, 38, now concedes that he used AI for historical research and for translating languages, but insists the writing is his own. He told Libération that he had explained everything to people close to him, and that he no longer believes his word counts for much.

I had explained everything to people close to me, but right now I don't think my word is worth anything.

He has also acknowledged plagiarism cases from his younger years, and he has described the threats, media lynching and racist harassment he says he has faced for weeks. In a text sent to AFP last week he said no sentence of the novel had been created by AI tools. Speaking after the publisher's announcement, he described his situation in stark terms.

What I am going through is enormous, it goes beyond the literary sphere, it goes too far.

Open questions

The publisher said it will probably never have a definitive answer on how far AI was used in the novel. Its statement described the central issue for it as the trust between authors and publishers.

The fundamental question for us is trust between authors and publishers.

The publisher also says it holds another manuscript by Orélien, and the case has drawn wider debate over the place of AI in creative writing. Several voices have warned about the risk of a harassment campaign against him, even apart from the question of AI use.