Quebec literary scandal reaches Swedish book fair as Thélyson Orélien faces AI accusations

The literary scandal engulfing Quebec author Thélyson Orélien has rippled across the Atlantic, reaching the Gothenburg Book Fair in Sweden this weekend, where Quebec's publishing delegation was guest of honour.

Orélien stands accused of writing his acclaimed novel "C'était ça ou mourir," published by Boréal and later by French publisher Grasset, using artificial intelligence. The book was removed from the Goncourt Prize shortlist after plagiarism was suspected in his columns and other literary texts.

Karine Vachon, directrice générale of the Association nationale des éditeurs de livre (ANEL) du Québec—the body operating Quebec's presence at the fair—was in Gothenburg when the story broke. "Everyone is obviously shaken," she told Le Devoir on Saturday. "You can imagine we're talking about it among ourselves."

Vachon expressed sympathy for Éditions du Boréal, calling it "a pillar of Quebec's literary institution, which has carried great works and finds itself in a position nobody would want to be in." The Swedish organisers also discussed the affair, she noted, though the French media had been the primary source of coverage.

The scandal has surfaced two deep questions for the publishing world. First is transparency: ANEL supports clear disclosure of AI use by authors. "If an author said they used artificial intelligence, we'd need to understand how they did it," Vachon said. "Is it for writing or brainstorming? Is the author still recognizably the creator of the work, and can it be recognized as human creation?"

The second is copyright. ANEL has spent years fighting to protect authors' rights, submitting a collective brief to the federal government seeking to ban conversational agents from scraping published works. The publishing sector is already pursuing legal action against digital companies for copyright violations—generative models were trained on millions of books and articles without authorization from rights holders.

The Gothenburg Book Fair, the largest in Scandinavia, ran through Sunday with over 120 meetings and debates featuring Quebec authors and translators on multiple stages across the city and in Stockholm.