Caine Prize winner denies using AI to write his story

The Zimbabwean writer who won this year's Caine Prize for African Writing has denied using artificial intelligence to write his winning story, and suggested AI-detection tools are biased against African writers.

Simbarashe Kundizeza's story The Blue Fighter won the $10,000 prize last week. But a report in The Atlantic said an AI-detection tool called Pangram had indicated that the entire story was AI-generated, apart from an excerpt from another author's poem.

"A deeply personal story"

In a post on X and in an interview with the Associated Press, Kundizeza insisted the story was entirely his own work and had gone through standard editorial processes. He said it was inspired by his family's experiences during Zimbabwe's years of economic turmoil.

"Aspects of the story, including characters and the setting, are drawn from events in my own life," he said, calling it "a deeply personal story about economic collapse and familial relationships".

"There is need to use technology responsibly so that it is not deployed to create a bias against natives who seek to write about their own experiences and cultures," he said.

He rejected the suggestion that differences from his earlier work should raise doubts. "To suggest that a writer cannot write in different styles or genres, or improve his writing substantially after five or more years, fundamentally misunderstands the craft of writing," he wrote.

Under review

The Caine Prize has not withdrawn the award, but says it is under review. "We aim to do this by taking a human-centred approach, ensuring that writers are supported and cared for during the process," the organisers said.

A wider debate

The case has prompted debate on social media, with some asking whether Black authors are being unfairly targeted by AI accusations. The Radical Books Collective listed several writers it said had been targeted. Nhlanhla Duba, a Zimbabwean linguist at the University of Pretoria, said: "That story sounds human. Zimbabwean literature is alive!"

Can AI detectors be trusted?

AI-detection tools estimate the likelihood that text was machine-generated by looking for statistical patterns. Researchers have warned that they can produce false positives, and some studies have found they are more likely to flag writing by people whose first language is not English. Publishers, universities and prize organisers are still working out how to handle such claims fairly.

About the prize

The Caine Prize, founded in 2000, is one of the most important awards for African fiction in English and has launched the careers of many celebrated writers. Its winners are announced each year in London. The outcome of the review is likely to be watched closely by literary prizes around the world, all of which are grappling with how to respond as AI writing tools become more widely used.