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Winner of the Prix Goncourt literary prize admits to using AI

The winner of France’s most prestigious literary prize has admitted using artificial intelligence while writing his novel, barely a day after collecting an award whose jury had thrown out another book over suspected AI use. Philippe Jaenada, who won the Prix Goncourt on Tuesday for L’Inconnue du quai de Javel (The Unknown Woman of the Quai de Javel), told France Inter radio on Wednesday that he had turned to AI “three times” while writing it. The first, he said, was to slip in a sentence written by ChatGPT in or…

Truvace record2 min read1 sourceEvidence: Emerging · 42/100 — News report · 1 independent sourceJournalismTRV-2026-2386 · cite or check it
Winner of the Prix Goncourt literary prize admits to using AI

In brief

Philippe Jaenada, 62, won the Prix Goncourt on Tuesday for L'Inconnue du quai de Javel and told France Inter the next day that he had used AI three times while writing it. One use was a sentence written by ChatGPT, which he revealed only to the jurors on the day of the award.

The admission comes after the Académie Goncourt removed Thélyson Orélien's debut novel C'était ça ou Mourir from its longlist in September. The book had sold more than 35,000 copies and won the Prix du roman Fnac before a journalist ran it through the AI-detection tool Pangram and concluded much of it was machine-generated.

The contrast has prompted online accusations of a racial double standard between the two writers. The Académie Goncourt has been approached for comment. The article notes that the accuracy of AI-detection software has been called into question.

Main points

  1. Jaenada said he turned to AI three times: a ChatGPT-written sentence to play with the reader, a section of AI-generated text mocking ChatGPT's absurd answers about a technical detail, and research.
  2. He told France Inter: You have to use it, but first you have to acknowledge it and tame it.
  3. The Goncourt academy said in a 25 September statement that Orélien's novel was in all likelihood very largely the product of an AI.
  4. Orélien called the allegations slander and heresy, saying not a single sentence was made by a machine, but he admitted plagiarism in earlier work.
  5. His Canadian publisher Boréal said new evidence showed AI had been used and ended its relationship with him.
  6. Jaenada won on the first round, six votes to three over Sylvain Prudhomme; the prize carries a symbolic €10 cheque.

The problem

France's Académie Goncourt removed Thélyson Orélien's novel, which had sold more than 35,000 copies, over suspected AI generation, and his publisher Boréal dropped him; the next prize winner then admitted using ChatGPT three times, drawing accusations of a double standard.

The full story

Jaenada's novel reconstructs the unsolved 1949 murder of Louise Cansot, a 29-year-old Breton artists' model. He had been shortlisted four times before. Ahead of the award he asked in an interview with 20 Minutes whether a film director would hide special effects, and predicted it would soon be impossible to say a text was 100% human-written.

Orélien's novel was the breakout hit of France's rentrée littéraire. The academy said it wanted to protect a prize honouring literature written by women and men and to send a clear message that it did not endorse texts generated with the help of AI. The detection came from Pangram, run by the journalist Samuel Fitoussi.

Online, one X user asked whether the outcome meant it is fine for an old white man but not for a young writer of colour, and another said Jaenada faced no media lynching. Jaenada insists AI will never be able to write a book with its heart, its soul, its memories.

Sources

  1. JournalismThe Guardian2026-11-05

The debate