A short story widely accused on social media of being generated by artificial intelligence has won the overall Commonwealth short story prize, according to The Guardian.
The winning piece, titled The Serpent in the Grove by Jamir Nazir, went viral after being announced as a regional winner in mid-May.
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Critics on X and Bluesky pointed to stylistic features they claimed indicated machine origin.
Following the backlash, literary magazine Granta withdrew from its long-standing partnership to publish the winning entries.
The Commonwealth Foundation conducted an internal review of regional winners, evaluating drafts, time-stamped documents, and author notes to verify authenticity.
“We are satisfied with the testimonies of our writers and their confirmation that AI was not used in their writing,” said foundation director-general Razmi Farook.
With this overall victory, Nazir receives an additional £2,500 prize, on top of the £2,500 he secured for winning the Caribbean regional category last month.
Judging chair Louise Doughty praised the selection, describing the text as “an original, poetic and deeply moving story”.
Online critics highlighted specific recurring linguistic patterns, such as multiple “not x, but y” structures and lists of three, as evidence of automated generation.
Skeptics also called attention to specific lines in the narrative, including: “Sun on galvanise is a cruel instrument”; “She had the kind of walking that made benches become men”; and “Marsha lived two bends down … [she was] big in the way of women who never apologise to furniture”.
