Zimbabwean writer Simbarashe Kundizeza has denied using artificial intelligence (AI) to write his short story, which won this year's Caine Prize for African Writing. His statement comes a week after he scooped the £10,000 ($13,000) award and a recent article in The Atlantic said AI-detection software Pangram had shown his work about a boy whose family falls on hard times was entirely AI generated. "For the avoidance of doubt, I wrote The Blue Fighter," he posted on X, external.
The accusation has caused an uproar on social media and Caine Prize chair Ellah Wakatama told the BBC she was shocked that the US magazine had not waited for a full investigation before publishing. "I do wish The Atlantic had spent more time investigating this so that alongside Pangram, they did have evidence of real human investigation of it before tainting the prize and tainting this winner," Wakatama told the BBC's Front Row programme. The chair of the Caine Prize's board of trustees said she had been contacted on Friday about the allegation and Vauhini Vara's article - Yet Another Prizewinner Seems to Be AI, external - had been published on Sunday.
It follows rows over other literary prizes this year, in particular the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, which was won by Trinidadian writer Jamir Nazir despite allegations that he had used AI, and the withdrawal of Canadian-Haitian author Thélyson Orélien from France's top literary award, the Goncourt, over allegations he used AI for his first novel, which he denies. Vara, who quoted Wakatama in her article, said her wariness of Silicon Valley was "well founded and reasonable" but she said Pangram's internal research showed its assessments were rarely wrong. The backlash to the article on social media has included comments from African writers with suggestions that such accusations are primarily being made against non-white writers.
Wale Lawal, the Nigerian founder of The Republic magazine, called out The Atlantic article for being "crazy, racist and wildly unethical", external. Zimbabwean writer Joe Ruzvidzo, whose novel Welcome to Anywhere came out last year, said he stood by Kundizeza and that it was time "to fight this literary stop-and-frisk", external. Nigerian publisher Modupe Daramola said it was necessary to discuss how "these AI allegations are targeting Black and African writers" and how they were often disproportionately scrutinised.
"There's something incredibly sinister about this," the Noisy Streetss Limited publisher posted on X, external. "Pangram is itself AI-powered. Why should its assessment be treated as definitive?" she added.
Wakatama said as part of an internal investigation for the Caine Prize Kundizeza would be sending in documentation about his various drafts and there were ongoing conversations with all the judges and The Shallow Tales Review, the publication that first published The Blue Fighter in 2025, external. In his statement, Kundizeza said had "a concrete, documented history" about the story's inspiration and he set out the chronology of its development. Wakatama, who is also editor-at-large at Canongate Books, said Caine Prize submissions, which are all previously published, were not checked for AI, but writers vouched that their work was original.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
