Goncourt winner admits using ChatGPT in prize-winning novel
Philippe Jaenada told France Inter he used AI three times in his novel, a day after collecting France's top literary prize.
Philippe Jaenada, who won the Prix Goncourt on Tuesday for L'Inconnue du quai de Javel, told France Inter radio on Wednesday that he had used artificial intelligence "three times" while writing the novel. He said one instance involved inserting a sentence written by ChatGPT to "play with the reader," and that he had told Goncourt jurors which sentence it was only on the day of the award. He also said he included AI-generated text to mock ChatGPT's "completely absurd answers about a technical detail," and used it for research.
The admission came barely a day after Jaenada collected the award, according to The Guardian. In September, the Académie Goncourt had removed Thélyson Orélien's C'était ça ou Mourir from its longlist, after journalist Samuel Fitoussi ran it through the AI-detection tool Pangram and concluded much of it was machine-generated; the academy said in a statement that analyses by researchers and journalists showed the novel was "in all likelihood very largely the product of an artificial intelligence." Orélien denied the allegations, though he separately admitted plagiarism in earlier work; his publisher, Boréal, later ended its relationship with him after saying new evidence showed AI had been used in the writing process.
Here's the part that should bother you: Jaenada says AI "will never be able to write a book with its heart, its soul, its memories," then tells French radio he slipped in a ChatGPT sentence specifically to "play with the reader." That's not disclosure, that's a party trick with a punchline only the judges were let in on. Meanwhile Thélyson Orélien's debut was pulled from the same prize's longlist in September over AI-detection allegations, and his publisher later dropped him. Two writers, two very different landings — and the only honest thing to do this week is notice that, not pretend it isn't there.
From the Coral Wire edition of Fri, Nov 6 2026 · Coral Index 28/100 (Storm warning)