Simbarashe Kundizeza Breaks Silence On AI Allegations After Winning £10,000 Caine Prize
Zimbabwean writer Simbarashe Kundizeza is defending his Caine Prize-winning short story, The Blue Fighter, after being accused of using artificial intelligence (AI) to produce the work.
The controversy erupted after an article in The Atlantic reported that an AI-detection tool had classified the story as entirely AI-generated.
Kundizeza, who won the £10,000 Caine Prize for African Writing, has maintained that he wrote the story himself.
Meanwhile, prize chair Ellah Wakatama criticised The Atlantic for publishing the allegations without first conducting a more thorough investigation.
Kundizeza Insists He Wrote The Story
According to BBC, while addressing the controversy on X, Kundizeza made it clear that he stood by the authorship of his winning entry.
“For the avoidance of doubt, I wrote The Blue Fighter,” he posted.
The Zimbabwean author also said he had a documented account of how the story originated and developed, including a chronology of its creation.
Responding to questions about differences between his writing styles, Kundizeza argued that authors should be allowed to experiment and develop their craft over time.
“To suggest that a writer cannot write in different styles or genres, or improve his writing substantially after five or more years fundamentally misunderstands the craft of writing,” he wrote.
The Blue Fighter, which follows a boy whose family experiences financial hardship, was first published by The Shallow Tales Review in 2025 before going on to win this year’s Caine Prize.
Caine Prize Chair Criticises Publication Of Allegations
Caine Prize chair Ellah Wakatama has expressed concern over the decision by The Atlantic to publish the allegations before a more extensive investigation had been completed.
Speaking to the BBC’s Front Row programme, Wakatama questioned whether the magazine had gathered sufficient independent evidence to support the claims made against the winning entry.
“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,” she said.
Wakatama, who chairs the prize’s board of trustees, said she was contacted about the allegations on Friday, while the article by Vauhini Vara was published on Sunday.
She confirmed that Kundizeza would provide documentation relating to the different drafts of his story as part of the prize organisers’ investigation.
The organisers are also in discussions with the judging panel and The Shallow Tales Review, which originally published the work.
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