The nine academy members gave him six votes, with the other three going to Sylvain Prudhomme for *De l'autre côté du lac*, according to Yahoo's report.

The Guardian describes the book as a literary true-crime investigation that revisits the unsolved September 1949 murder of Louise Cansot, a 29-year-old Breton model known as 'the woman with a hundred portraits' in Montparnasse.

The Guardian notes Jaenada had been shortlisted four times before and that this is his 13th novel.

The surprise, as Yahoo reports, is that Jaenada — an author who does not even own a mobile phone — incorporated his own research conversations with ChatGPT and Claude into the book. Defending the choice before the award, he asked: 'Would a film director hide the fact that he uses special effects?'

He told 20 Minutes that soon no text can be asserted as 100% human-written, and suggested a novel could carry a chapter explicitly identified as AI-written. Yet he insisted AI can never write a book 'with its heart, its soul, its memories, its unique vision.'

This edition of the Goncourt was already engulfed in an AI controversy, both outlets report. Thélyson Orélien, a Haitian-Canadian writer initially tipped to win, was withdrawn from the shortlist over allegations that *C'était ça ou mourir* was almost entirely machine-written.

According to Yahoo, AI-detection testing suggested more than 95% of the text was machine generated — though such tools' reliability remains disputed — and Orélien denies using AI while acknowledging plagiarism in earlier works.

The Guardian adds that his Canadian publisher, Boréal, severed ties after an investigation.

The scandal has pushed the Académie Goncourt to rewrite its rules. Academy president Philippe Claudel told the press that new regulations will be adopted before the end of the year making clear that the prize honours 'a work written by a human being', Yahoo reports.

Antoine Gallimard, head of the eponymous publishing house, added that anyone who has used AI to create a book 'simply needs to be very honest and say so.' The irony of a chatbot-assisted winner in the same year is exactly the debate readers will carry forward.

The Guardian reports that Jaenada's 530-page book goes well beyond naming a suspect for the 1949 killing: the original 300-page police report concluded Cansot was a woman of 'ill repute', and newspapers speculated she was a sex worker or drug addict, while the novel offers an empathetic portrayal the paper says rights those wrongs.

Le Monde, cited by both outlets, praised his 'touch of grumpy tenderness' and wrote that the book is 'deeply haunted by the passage of time.' The Guardian says he prepared by re-reading 74 of Georges Simenon's 75 Maigret novels, applying Commissioner Maigret's methods to police archives.

Yahoo notes the Goncourt carries a token award of just €10, but can transform an author's fortunes: last year's winner, Laurent Mauvignier, sold nearly 640,000 copies of *La Maison vide*.

Speaking on the steps of Le Drouant, Jaenada called the win 'a culmination; it's an honour' and said he expects a 'whirlwind' while already longing to return to court records, per Yahoo.