{"id":31457,"date":"2026-10-08T10:52:30","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T14:52:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hebdo24.com\/despite-controversy-thelyson-orelien-stays-in-the-running-for-the-renaudot-with-cetait-ca-ou-mourir\/"},"modified":"2026-10-08T10:52:30","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T14:52:30","slug":"despite-controversy-thelyson-orelien-stays-in-the-running-for-the-renaudot-with-cetait-ca-ou-mourir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hebdo24.com\/en\/despite-controversy-thelyson-orelien-stays-in-the-running-for-the-renaudot-with-cetait-ca-ou-mourir\/","title":{"rendered":"Despite Controversy, Th\u00e9lyson Or\u00e9lien Stays in the Running for the Renaudot With \u201cC\u2019\u00e9tait \u00e7a ou mourir\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>The novel by the Haitian-born Quebec writer, at the center of a controversy over allegations of artificial intelligence use and plagiarism, has made the second shortlist for the Prix Renaudot. It is also in contention for the Prix de la Porte Dor\u00e9e and is the best-selling novel of France&#8217;s fall literary season.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Th\u00e9lyson Or\u00e9lien&#8217;s novel <strong>&#8220;C&#8217;\u00e9tait \u00e7a ou mourir&#8221;<\/strong> (&#8220;It Was That or Die&#8221;) continues its run in several French literary prizes despite the controversy surrounding its author.<\/p>\n<p>Published in France by Grasset, the book is on the <strong>second shortlist for the 2026 Prix Renaudot<\/strong>, announced on Wednesday, October 7. The jury decided to keep the novel among the nine works still in contention, despite allegations that the writer used artificial intelligence and plagiarized.<\/p>\n<p>The decision sets the Renaudot apart from other major literary prizes. The novel had been withdrawn from the <strong>Goncourt<\/strong> selection and did not make the second shortlist for the <strong>Femina<\/strong>. It remains in the running, however, for the <strong>Prix litt\u00e9raire de la Porte Dor\u00e9e<\/strong>, which honors works dealing with exile, migration and multiple identities.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>The author disputes the allegations<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Th\u00e9lyson Or\u00e9lien, 38, denies using artificial intelligence to write his novel.<\/p>\n<p>In an interview with the Quebec daily <em>La Presse<\/em>, the writer said he had &#8220;never used artificial intelligence to produce texts.&#8221; He said he began working on the book in 2017 and developed the manuscript over the years.<\/p>\n<p>The controversy erupted in September after posts on X alleged that the novel had been largely produced with the help of artificial intelligence. Plagiarism allegations followed. The Haitian writer disputes those as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The novel by the Haitian-born Quebec writer, at the center of a controversy over allegations of artificial intelligence use and plagiarism, has made the second shortlist for the Prix Renaudot. It is also in contention for the Prix de la Porte Dor\u00e9e and is the best-selling novel of France&#8217;s fall literary season. Th\u00e9lyson Or\u00e9lien&#8217;s novel [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":81,"featured_media":29830,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2246,4396],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-culture","category-literature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hebdo24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hebdo24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hebdo24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hebdo24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/81"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hebdo24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hebdo24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hebdo24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hebdo24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hebdo24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hebdo24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}