The cancellation of a book launch in Madrid has exposed a growing challenge for literary publishers: how to verify the human origins of unpublished works as artificial intelligence becomes more difficult to distinguish from conventional writing. Donde el agua trabaja, a novel by Peruvian author David Silva Rojas, was identified by the detection programme Pangram as 99% AI-generated, according to Spanish newspaper EL PAÍS. The controversy has prompted its publisher, Mexico-based Almadía, to suspend promotional events and announce a detailed review of the manuscript.
The disruption came only hours before the novel was due to be presented at Espacio Telefónica in Madrid last Friday. The book had already reached shops in Mexico, Colombia and Argentina and was beginning its launch in Spain. Silva Rojas, a 46-year-old lawyer who has spent two decades living in Japan, had travelled to Madrid after winning the first International Almadía Ventosa-Arrufat Short Novel Prize, which carries an award of €20,000. Further promotional appearances in Barcelona, Seville and Cádiz had been planned for October, but the schedule was abandoned following the report about the novel’s alleged use of AI.
Silva Rojas has made no public statement and has returned to Peru. According to sources at the publishing house, however, he contacted the publisher on Friday and offered to cooperate fully with an investigation. The sources said he was experiencing an anxiety attack during the conversation but eventually calmed down and was able to explain his position. He reportedly offered to provide earlier drafts, evidence of his writing process and any other material needed to demonstrate that he had written the novel himself. His offer has not yet established whether AI was used in producing the book.
Almadía has emphasised that its competition explicitly prohibited the use of artificial intelligence in writing submitted works. In a statement, the publisher said the relationship of trust between an author and a publishing house was fundamental to its work. “From the opening of the call for submissions, the rules and protocol of the prize established the prohibition of the use of artificial intelligence in writing the works,” it said.
The novel passed through several stages of selection before winning. During the competition’s first edition, the publishing team screened more than 2,000 manuscripts and reduced the field to 100. A second selection narrowed the entries to 25, before the jury considered 10 finalists and selected Donde el agua trabaja as the winner. The jury included the established writers Cristina Rivera Garza, Selva Almada and Mónica Ojeda. Almadía said that, during their reading of the novel, the team had not suspected that generative AI had been used.
The publisher has nevertheless acknowledged the need to investigate the detector’s findings before drawing conclusions. It plans to conduct a “detailed review” and publish its conclusions afterwards. The case presents a difficult question for the industry: whether a machine-generated probability assessment can be challenged by examining drafts, earlier versions and the development of a manuscript, and how publishers should interpret such evidence when it conflicts with their own editorial judgement.
Almadía has also warned against allowing detection software to become the final authority on literary authorship. “We are concerned about a scenario in which we entrust machines with the production of texts and the definitive authority to judge their origin,” the publisher said. “Detectors can provide information, but their results require interpretation.” The distinction is important because the accusation against Silva Rojas remains based on a detector’s assessment, while the publisher’s investigation has yet to reach a conclusion.
The controversy is not confined to Spanish-language publishing. In France, the novel C’était ça ou mourir was removed from consideration for the Goncourt Prize amid suspicions of AI use. Its Haitian-Canadian author, Thélyson Orélien, denied using AI but acknowledged plagiarism in some of his earlier works. Spanish writer Espido Freire has also observed on social media that novels generated partly or entirely by AI have become commonplace in literary competitions over the past year.
Other writers have questioned how authorship should be defined when technology is involved in the writing process. Jorge Carrión has argued that texts produced using AI have also been written by humans, since the technology does not operate independently of human involvement. Azahara Palomeque has raised a related question about what makes someone a writer if they do not write the text themselves.
Valerie Miles, editor of Granta in Spanish and literary director of the Diana Zaforteza Prize, which announced its winner this week, believes publishers need support as they confront such cases. She has defended the continued value of prizes for unpublished works, while arguing that the number of manuscripts received can no longer serve as a meaningful measure of a competition’s success.
Miles also cited the case of Jamir Nazir, whose short story appeared in the British edition of Granta. Nazir denied writing the story with AI but said he had used dictation software and edited it on his phone. The case illustrates the difficulty of distinguishing between AI-generated prose and writing produced by people using digital tools.
“When it comes to these detections, what is meant by writing done by AI? We need to be careful with accusations until we know exactly what happened,” Miles said. She added that texts submitted in her creative-writing classes at Pompeu Fabra University were routinely checked for plagiarism and suggested that publishers might eventually need a quality mark certifying that a literary work had been produced by a human.
Miles argues that both manuscript submission procedures and checks on originality will need to be reconsidered. While commercial fiction in the English-language market may increasingly prioritise sales regardless of whether AI is used, she said literary creation required protection for human work. Almadía has already opened submissions for the second edition of its prize, accepting unpublished Spanish-language novels of between 30,000 and 50,000 words until 22 December.
