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 entered stories, and we recognise our responsibility to ensure equality, fairness and integrity throughout the competition. Each winning story has been read by at least seven people, through multiple rounds of rigorous judging. We have spent the past month thoroughly investigating allegations of AI use. We have not used AI tools due to concerns regarding artistic ownership and consent surrounding unpublished work from across the Commonwealth. Whilst these tools can serve as useful indicators of potential AI involvement, we also recognise the widely accepted view that they cannot provide conclusive evidence on their own. Therefore, we sought to gather further information to make an informed and fair decision…” She added that the Foundation “…also examined evidence related to the development of their stories, including working drafts, time-stamped documents and notes. After a thorough consultation with our judges and careful consideration of all available information, we are satisfied that AI was not used to write the winning stories. Therefore, we will proceed with the regional winners selected by the independent judging process.”
Meanwhile, Granta, which until now has been publishing the regional winners of the Prize, will no longer be doing so. The magazine said, “The 2026 selection of the regional winners of the Commonwealth prize caused a great deal of controversy, based on the speculation that one or more of the stories may have been at least partially AI-generated, accusations that were strongly rejected by the authors. For the sake of our own editorial integrity, the Granta Trust board has now taken the decision that we will no longer engage in external publishing partnerships…”
The prize awards £5,000 to the overall winner and £2,500 to regional winners.
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