A Quebec publisher says it will keep selling a novel at the centre of an AI-authorship dispute, even though it cannot fully verify how the book came to be written. The decision leaves open the question that has driven the controversy: whether Thélyson Orélien's acclaimed debut was written by a machine.
Éditions du Boréal confirmed on 14 October that "C'était ça ou mourir" would remain available despite allegations of extensive artificial intelligence use, Times Now reported. The decision came a day after the Haitian-Canadian novelist denied using AI in the book while acknowledging plagiarism in separate, earlier writing.
Boréal says its editorial team received the completed manuscript on 12 September 2025. The publisher says it cannot independently reconstruct how the work developed before that date, though it maintains that its own editing and proofreading involved no AI, according to Times Now.
Orélien says he began writing the novel in Quebec in autumn 2017 and finished a first draft of more than 300 pages in 2019. He insists no sentence in the published novel was machine-generated. Those claims have not been independently established through a complete manuscript history, Times Now reported.
Trust versus surveillance
Boréal has not declared the AI allegations disproved. Instead, the publisher argues that publishing depends on trust between writers and editors rather than continuous surveillance of an author's creative process. Without convincing evidence of misconduct involving this specific novel, Boréal says it will not withdraw it, Times Now reported.
Orélien's position is complicated by his own admission that he copied passages from other writers in a 2012 short story and a 2013 opinion piece. He has apologised, calling those actions unacceptable mistakes, according to Times Now.
Boréal has condemned that plagiarism without qualification. At the same time, the publisher draws a distinction between the established misconduct in that older material and the still-disputed allegation concerning the novel, according to Times Now. Condemning one does not, on its own, prove the other.
The AI allegations surfaced after an account on X claimed that detection software had identified substantial machine-generated material in the novel, Times Now reported. The dispute had immediate consequences: the book was removed from the Prix Goncourt selection, and Boréal suspended its promotional activities for the title.
Even so, "C'était ça ou mourir" remained in contention for the Prix Renaudot as of 14 October, Times Now reported. The novel's reported sales have exceeded 100,000 copies.
A question for publishers generally
The case points to a dilemma publishers may face more often as AI-detection tools proliferate. Times Now noted that AI-detection scores are not conclusive evidence of authorship, yet publishers also owe readers some assurance about the integrity of the books they sell.
Demanding years of drafts and digital records from every author could turn editorial relationships into investigations. Declining to examine credible concerns, on the other hand, risks eroding public trust, according to Times Now.
Orélien has also reported threats and racist harassment, which Boréal has condemned, Times Now reported. The novel's continued availability is not a verdict of innocence, nor an endorsement of the author's past plagiarism. It is a decision not to withdraw a book over allegations that remain unresolved.
The Prix Renaudot has not yet announced its decision on the novel's continued contention.
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