The Mexican publisher Almadía announced on October 23, 2026 that it will review the novel "Donde el agua trabaja", by the Peruvian author David Silva Rojas, after an artificial intelligence detector attributed 99% of the text to a machine. While the analysis is underway, the publishing house suspended the book's presentations and called for caution regarding automated results.
The work won last July the first Premio Internacional de Novela Breve Almadía-Ventosa Arrufat, endowed with 20 thousand euros, about 415 thousand pesos, according to the EFE agency as reported by Infobae. The contest rules prohibited the use of generative AI, and the author signed in his contract that he did not use it. The jury, made up of Cristina Rivera Garza, Selva Almada and Mónica Ojeda, and the editorial team saw no signs of AI in their reading.
The trigger was an analysis by Pangram, a detector that studied the full text and marked it as 99% AI-generated, according to the original report by El País. The case escalated on social media, where writers discussed how to prove the authorship of a manuscript.
In a statement reported by Excélsior, Almadía maintained that "we have no elements to distrust his word" and that it will keep open "a detailed review" without anticipating conclusions. The publisher added that automated detectors require interpretation and cross-checking, because AI tools evolve quickly.
The debate reaches the desks of Mexican publishers at a time when the sector still has no common standard for verifying authorship. On social media, authors such as Dahlia de la Cerda called for reviewing drafts and records of the creative process before casting doubt on a writer, while others questioned the evidentiary weight of machines.
What comes next will be Almadía's review. The statement sets no date for making it public, and the case leaves an open question for the publishing trade: what documents and processes will be requested going forward to support that a work was written by a person.
This article was written with the assistance of artificial intelligence based on verified sources and reviewed by a human editor before publication.
