A prestigious short story competition has been engulfed in controversy after multiple winning entries were accused of being generated by artificial intelligence. The 2026 Commonwealth Short Story Prize, which celebrates unpublished fiction from across the 56 member states, is now under scrutiny following allegations that the Caribbean regional winner, 'The Serpent in the Grove' by Trinidad and Tobago writer Jamir Nazir, may have been written using AI tools.
Allegations Emerge Online
The story was announced as the Caribbean winner last week and published online by Granta on 12 May. Shortly after, readers on social media pointed out stylistic features commonly associated with AI-generated text. Ethan Mollick, a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, described the story as a 'Turing test of sorts' on Bluesky. AI researcher Nabeel S Qureshi noted 'Not X, not Y, but Z' sentences and the frequent use of the word 'hum', which researchers say AI overuses. The story opens with: 'They say the grove still hums at noon. Not the bees' neat industry or the clean rasp of cutlass on vine, but a belly sound — as if the earth swallows a shout and holds it there.'
Author Background Questioned
Users searching for Nazir found little online presence beyond a self-published poetry collection from 2018 with a blurry stock photo cover and LinkedIn posts discussing AI. Some speculated that the author's photo might be AI-generated, though a 2018 article in the Trinidad and Tobago Guardian featured a photograph of Nazir holding his book. The Free Press reported that AI-detection platforms Pangram and Grammarly identified the story as '100 percent' AI-generated, while GPTZero classified it as 'entirely human' and QuillBot found a 'zero percent likelihood' of machine authorship.
Granta and Commonwealth Foundation Respond
Granta publisher Sigrid Rausing stated that the magazine had no role in selecting the winners but submitted the story to Anthropic's Claude AI, which concluded it was 'almost certainly not produced unaided by a human'. She added that 'more than one' winning story faced similar allegations. Indeed, users flagged 'The Bastion's Shadow' by John Edward DeMicoli (Canada and Europe winner) as fully AI-generated by Pangram, and 'Mehendi Nights' by Sharon Aruparayil (Asia winner) as partly AI-generated.
The Commonwealth Foundation announced a 'thorough, transparent review of the selection process'. Director General Razmi Farook said the foundation did not use AI detection during judging due to concerns about consent and artistic ownership. He emphasized that all shortlisted writers confirmed their work was original and that the foundation operates on 'the principle of trust' until reliable detection tools emerge. Granta has added a notice to all five winning stories online, stating they will remain until a definite conclusion is reached.
The overall winner of the £5,000 prize will be announced on 30 June. The Independent has contacted Nazir, DeMicoli and Aruparayil for comment.
