These claims have come from many readers, many of them writers themselves, expressing bewilderment and dismay that the prize jury had overlooked potential signs of inauthentic authorship.
Each year, the Commonwealth Foundation, a London-based NGO, awards its short story prize to one writer in each of five regions: Africa, Asia, Canada, Europe, the Caribbean and the Pacific. One winner is then chosen from that short list. Regional winners receive £2,500 (about US$3,350), while the first winner, to be announced next month, will receive £5,000 (about US$6,700).
On May 12, the prestigious British literary magazine Granta published the five best entries of 2026 – all previously unpublished, according to the contest’s rules – on its website. (It has hosted award-winning submissions since 2012.)
But within days, one entry raised suspicions. “The Serpent in the Orchard,” a story by Jameer Nazir from Trinidad and Tobago, which won honors for the Caribbean, surprised some people because it carried the stylistic narrative of the AI-generated text.
Researcher and businessman Nabil S. wrote: “Well, here’s a first: a story produced by ChatGPT has won a prestigious literary award,” Qureshi, a former visiting scholar in artificial intelligence at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, said in a post on X on Monday. “Not
“They say the orchard still buzzes at noon,” Nazir’s mysterious and poignant tale begins. In a screenshot of the opening paragraphs, Qureshi highlighted the second line as what he saw as a distinct example of AI syntax: “Not the elegant industry of the bee or a clean rasp on the vine, but the sound of the belly-as if the earth were swallowing up the cry and carrying it there.”
When the literary community closely read Nazir’s story, many criticized its language and metaphors as illogical, wondering how Commonwealth judges could see any merit in them. Others shared screenshots showing that AI detection tool Pangram flagged “The Serpent in the Grove” as 100 percent AI-generated, a finding that WIRED independently confirmed. (Although no AI detection software is perfect, third-party analysis has consistently determined Pangram to be the most accurate, with a near-zero rate of false positives.)
Nazir did not respond to a request for comment sent via the email address listed on his Facebook page. Posts on this account and Jameer Nazir’s Trinidad and Tobago LinkedIn profile are also scanned as being generated by AI on Pangram. Although some speculation suggests that Nazir himself could have been a character created entirely by artificial intelligence, a 2018 article was published in the Trinidad and Tobago edition of The Guardian about his self-published poetry collection. Moon night of love– which includes a photo of Nazir holding the book – indicates that he is a real person.
WIRED contacted both Granta and the Commonwealth Foundation about Nazir’s story. Neither commented directly, but both issued public statements.
“We are aware of the allegations and discussions surrounding generative AI and our short story prize,” Razmi Farooq, director general of the Commonwealth Foundation, wrote in a statement on the organization’s website. “We take these allegations seriously and are committed to responding to them carefully and transparently.” Farouk defended the award’s judging process as “robust”, with multiple rounds of readers and senior judges selected based on their “expertise”.
