Thélyson Orélien’s Publisher Refuses To Withdraw His Novel Amid AI Allegations

Despite AI Allegations, Thélyson Orélien's Publisher Stands Firmly Behind His Novel

A publisher has decided to keep selling a novel whose origins it cannot fully verify. For Thélyson Orélien, whose acclaimed debut has become the centre of a literary controversy, that decision offers support without resolving the question troubling critics: who, or what, wrote the book?

On 14 October, Quebec publisher Éditions du Boréal confirmed that 'C'était ça ou mourir' would remain available despite allegations of extensive artificial intelligence use. The decision came a day after the Haitian-Canadian novelist denied using AI in the work while acknowledging plagiarism in unrelated, earlier writing.

Boréal says its editorial team received the completed manuscript on 12 September 2025. It cannot independently reconstruct how the work developed before then, although it maintains that its subsequent editing and proofreading involved no AI.

Orélien claims he began writing the novel in Quebec in autumn 2017 and completed a first draft exceeding 300 pages in 2019. He insists that no sentence in the published novel was generated by a machine. Those claims have not been independently established through a complete manuscript history.

C'était ça ou mourir (Picture Credit – Goodreads)

Crucially, Boréal has not declared the allegations…

Original source: https://www.timesnownews.com/lifestyle