Zimbabwean Writer Denies Using AI to Write Caine Prize-Winning Story

Zimbabwean writer Simbarashe Kundizeza has denied using artificial intelligence to write his award-winning short story, after The Atlantic published a piece alleging the work was almost entirely AI-generated.

Kundizeza's short story The Blue Fighter was announced as the winner of the prestigious Caine Prize for African writing on 6 October. Five days later, The Atlantic ran a piece by journalist and author Vauhini Vara headlined: "Yet Another Literary Award Winner Who Appears to Be AI."

According to Vara, she ran the story through the AI-detection software Pangram — which itself uses AI — and the software concluded the work was almost entirely AI-generated. The only exception, she said, was the epigraph taken from what is described as an unpublished poem by South African writer Vangile Gantsho.

Vara said that when she read the story she "was struck by the dense presence of phrasing common in AI-generated text: the 'not x, but y' construction; the proliferating metaphors; the platitudinous aphorisms." She added: "Taste is subjective, but trust me, this story is bad — mawkish and full of tiresome clichés."

In response, Kundizeza issued a statement on X: "To avoid any doubt, I wrote 'The Blue Fighter.' I did not use generative AI to write it. It is entirely my own work." He added: "I hope to continue working with the Caine Prize team, and to celebrate this recognition together with those who helped bring this story to the world. Most importantly, I will keep writing."

Similar allegations have recently been aimed at other prize-winning authors. In July, Trinidadian writer Jamir Nazir won the Commonwealth Foundation short story prize with The Serpent in the Grove, despite some critics on social media saying the work bore "clear hallmarks" of AI writing. Last month, the novel C'était Ça Ou Mourir (It Was That or Die) by Haitian-Canadian writer Thélyson Orélien was dropped from the first-round nomination list for the Goncourt — France's most prestigious literary prize — after an anonymous online account alleged the book was "almost entirely" written by AI.

The Caine Prize said it is reviewing the allegations against Kundizeza. In a statement, the organisers said: "When such allegations arise, it is our responsibility to investigate. We are committed to a human-centred approach, ensuring the writer is supported and treated with care throughout the process."

The chair of the Caine Prize, Ellah Wakatama, questioned the reliability of the AI-detection software itself. Speaking to the BBC's Front Row programme, she said: "As someone who chairs a prize, of course I'm not opposed to AI, but what I object to is it being used as the final arbiter in this case, whatever The Atlantic says, because they have declared our winner a fraud without a full investigation." She stressed: "I am not happy that writers' work — Black writers in this case — has become a testing ground for a tool that is still crude."

In her article and in the Front Row interview, Vara said she had read a 2021 story by Kundizeza that had a different voice and style from The Blue Fighter. Kundizeza responded: "To suggest that a writer cannot write in different styles or genres, or cannot improve significantly over five years or more, is a fundamental misunderstanding of the craft."

Vara cited Pangram's own research showing false positives are very rare, even for non-native English speakers, along with a peer-reviewed paper concluding Pangram has "high accuracy" in assessing academic papers that were fully, partly, or not AI-generated. However, she acknowledged to the BBC that there is "relatively little third-party research" on the accuracy of AI-detection software.