Boreal Publishing Severs Ties with Thelyson Orelien After Confirming AI Use in Award-Nominated Novel

Publisher Boreal says investigations confirmed the Haitian-Canadian author Thelyson Orelien used artificial intelligence in his breakthrough novel.

Published On 21 Oct 202621 Oct 2026

Boreal Publishing has terminated its professional relationship with best-selling Haitian-Canadian author Thelyson Orelien after an investigation confirmed he used artificial intelligence to help write his novel, It Was Either That or Die.

On Wednesday, the publisher announced it had conducted a deeper inquiry following allegations that surfaced in September to determine whether AI played a role in the book’s creation.

“New information, confirmed over the past few days, indicates that artificial intelligence was used in the writing process,” Boreal said in a statement.

Orelien had previously denied the allegations surrounding his breakthrough novel, and as recently as last week, the Canadian publisher said it was standing by the 38-year-old writer.

Boreal acknowledged it does not know the full extent of AI’s involvement in the manuscript “and we will likely never have a definitive answer.” The publisher said it collected all working versions of the novel and hired an independent third party to analyze the various drafts.

“The results obtained this week revealed traces of AI tags in the metadata of certain documents,” Boreal said.

The publisher said it had attempted to collaborate with Orelien to gather evidence necessary to establish his innocence. That effort proved inconclusive, and Orelien “subsequently announced that he would not provide any further information,” according to the publisher.

‘Slander and heresy’

Orelien’s novel about migration, known by its original French title C’etait ca ou mourir, had been slated for translation in more than 20 countries.

France’s prestigious Goncourt Prize removed C’etait ca ou mourir from its shortlist after tests with the AI detector Pangram indicated a 100 percent probability that the text contained computer-generated content.

Orelien dismissed the allegations as “slander and heresy” in a statement sent to AFP earlier this month.

“Here and there I did use tools for research, particularly for foreign idioms,” he said. “But not a single sentence in this book was created by a machine, nor the meaning or the structure of a story that comes from my gut.”

On Wednesday, he maintained his position, telling the French newspaper Liberation that he had used AI “in the creative process” for “historical research.” The author noted he began writing the book in late 2017, before AI services such as ChatGPT were widely available.

When the allegations first surfaced in September, Orelien suggested racism was behind the attacks on him.

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