Barely a week ago, the much anticipated crime novel Call Me, I'll Hide the Body, by Jerry Falade, a Nigerian writer, was withdrawn due to AI allegations. The deal was said to be more than $2m (approximately £1.5m) from Minotaur, owned by Macmillan US, after fourteen publishers vouched for it. According to a leaked email message, his agent was forced to withdraw the deal because he could not "authenticate how the manuscript fully evolved from origin to completion.”

His agent, Marc Gerald, was so impressed with the book at first read that recommended it. He didn't give his support as an editor in a meeting suggested that AI-detection softwares be used to check the manuscript. However, after a meeting on 29 July, when aspects of Falade’s story changed, the agency decided to cut ties, citing the “need to have total faith”.
“We feel terrible for putting this into the universe and the firestorm it has caused,” Gerald added. “The book itself is genius – however it came to be drafted, it’s amazing.”

Reacting to the message, The Guardian interviewed Falade saying, "Three Black authors received major publishing deals this year, and all three later had deals cancelled or disrupted following suspicions about AI. There seems to be a troubling assumption that when a Black writer produces work that attracts significant attention, the work could not possibly be their own. Meanwhile, there are popular white writers who have publicly mentioned using AI for their writing processes and they’re still doing fine.”

Falade went on to cite two black authors in the US who had faced allegations of AI use this year: Ballard and HM Wolfe, author of the viral romance, Daggermouth. Despite Wolfe denying her indulging with AI, her deal was cancelled. The Guardian wrote that earlier this year, Hachette pulled the US release of Mia Ballard’s horror novel, Shy Girl, after rumours circulated online that the author had relied on AI, something she denies.

The issue of censorship of authors has been a scaffold on writers right from historical times, and as Falade insisted, it is targeted against African writers. Most early writers faced the same discrimination, often having their works turned away. Chinua Achebe, who is considered to be the Father of African novel writing, faced the same discrimination when he wanted to publish Things Fall Apart. As he wrote in his memoir, There Was A Country, his novel was rejected by many publishers. The argument strewed on different reasons, from those commenting the manuscript as lacking form, to discrediting the content, Achebe almost gave up until he met Heinemann Publishing Company. 

Before the era of Achebe, there was Amos Tutuola, whose The Palm Wine Drinkard was maliciously described as an implantation of foreign stories on African soil. Anne Tibble wrote in African English Literature issue that clearly Amos "has read a great deal of non-African folk and fairy tale before writing The Palm Wine Drinkard. The same was also accused of "mixing of ancient and modern" stories. Although Amos has been exonerated by modern critics of skillfully transplanting African folk tales on pages, the stigma smudged by Tibble grew cancerously into a pattern that has been followed by critics and publishers unfamiliar with African ways. 

This now brings us to the question, what implications are there if the western world redefines Africa’s creativity as artificial? What happens to its literature if it is largely framed AI generated? 

Falade posted on his Instagram, shortly after the decline on Tuesday, that the claims against him are part of a historical pattern of diminishing the intellectual contributions of people of color. Indirectly, Falade is making a reference to the possibility of futuristic indicting African writers. According to him, white authors brag about using AI all the time. The saga of the recently concluded commonwealth short story prize where the overall winner was alleged to have used LLMs to develop his story. Here, Falade is saying the case would have been different, had it been it was an African writer.

The future of African literature in the eyes of western critics is draped in the overall black cloak of artificial intelligence, running its stain on genres. This is why African authors and publishers must take the reins and start stirring the course of season. The first generation writers did so, and through the establishment of African Writers Series, a lot of novels from all parts of the continents came out. We must be unapologetic in the stories we write, as Falade wrote on his Instagram story, “Definitely innocent!!! They CAN’T and WON’T stop this Black boy’s light from shining!!" The AI syndrome is fast spreading like wild fire, and it is only consuming black literature. 

Author

Paul Olayioye