Zimbabwean author denies using AI to write award-winning story

Key points

• Zimbabwean writer Simbarashe Kundizeza denies using AI to write his Caine Prize-winning story.
• The Atlantic reported Pangram software flagged the story as entirely AI generated.
• Caine Prize chair Ellah Wakatama criticized The Atlantic for publishing before a full investigation.

Zimbabwean author Simbarashe Kundizeza has denied using artificial intelligence to write his short story The Blue Fighter, which won this year's £10,000 ($13,000) Caine Prize for African Writing. His denial followed a report in The Atlantic citing AI-detection software Pangram, which indicated the story was entirely AI generated.

The accusation sparked widespread reaction on social media. Caine Prize chair Ellah Wakatama told the BBC she was shocked that The Atlantic had not waited for a full investigation before publishing.

What officials said

Wakatama said she wished The Atlantic had spent more time investigating so that, alongside Pangram, there was evidence of real human investigation before tainting the prize and the winner. She said Kundizeza would send documentation about his drafts as part of an internal Caine Prize investigation, with ongoing talks involving judges and The Shallow Tales Review, which first published the story in 2025.

Wakatama said Caine Prize submissions, all previously published, were not checked for AI, but writers vouched their work was original. She said she was not against using AI to check entries, but was against it being used as a final arbiter, and noted Pangram was not yet tested.

I do wish The Atlantic had spent more time investigating this so that alongside Pangram, they did have evidence of real human investigation of it before tainting the prize and tainting this winner

— Ellah Wakatama

Reaction and context

The Atlantic article by Vauhini Vara quoted Wakatama and said Pangram's internal research showed its assessments were rarely wrong. Vara told the BBC she used her own judgment and that every other previous Caine Prize-winning story she ran through Pangram came out as 100% human, as did an earlier 2021 story by Kundizeza.

Kundizeza said he had a concrete, documented history of the story's inspiration and set out its development. He said suggesting a writer cannot write in different styles or improve substantially after five or more years misunderstands the craft. The row follows other literary prize disputes this year over AI allegations.