Convinced AI was not used to write the 2026 winning stories, says Commonwealth Short Story Prize

The Commonwealth Foundation has said that it is convinced AI was not used to write the winning stories of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, and that it is standing by its judges’ decision. The overall winner will be picked from the pool of five regional winners and announced on June 30.

The Prize announced its five regional winners in May, and the winning stories were published by Granta. However, a controversy broke out immediately afterwards when writer and researcher Nabeel S Qureshi pointed to parts of Jamir Nazir’s story “The Serpent in the Grove” (winner for the Trinidad and Tobago, Caribbean region), suggesting they were typical of “ChatGPT-generated” language.

Jenna Russel, a research scientist at Pangram, said that no stories before 2025 appeared to have been written by AI, but three from this year’s five regional winners seemed to have been partly or wholly AI creations. The other two, besides Jamir’s story, that she mentioned were Malta’s John Edward DeMicoli’s story, “The Bastion’s Shadow” (winner, Canada and Europe region), supposedly 100% AI-written, and India’s Sharon Aruparayil’s story “Mehendi Nights” (winner, India, Asia region), supposedly 88% AI-written.

After weeks of uncertainty about the outcome of this year’s final prize, Razmi Farook, the Director-General of the Commonwealth Foundation, said that, “[…] This year, more than 7,800 writers...

Read more