Short story collection | Once Removed (2024)
In March 2024, my debut collection of short stories, Once Removed, is out with South African publisher Botsotso.
ABOUT THE COLLECTION:
“The stories comprising Once Removed are consistently excellent… I have not been this compelled by a collection of short fiction in a considerable time.” — Dr Michael Titlestad
Written by the Johannesburg-based editor and arts writer, David Mann, Once Removed is a collection of 13 subtly interlinked stories inspired by the South African art world.
With its unique views into high-end galleries, crumbling museums, immanent art fairs and out-of-work critics, the collection explores the idea of having one’s life changed, in ways both profound and banal, through novel encounters with art and performance.
The stories in Once Removed traverse the theatres, artist studios and archives that characterise the world of contemporary art and performance. But they also zero in on the homes, private lives, daily journeys and emotional interiorities of the various characters that inhabit them.
While the stories in Once Removed draw from the undercurrents of the South African art world, their concerns and evocations are not limited to it.
“Once Removed is for readers who are familiar with the worlds of art and performance, and those for whom it is completely foreign. A reader doesn’t need to be immersed in the world of artists, critics, exhibitors, gallerists or academics to access the collection, and to enjoy the imbalances, precarity, hilarity, and possibilities represented in it,” explains Mann.
Part ironic realism, part experimental surrealism, these stories will matter differently, but equally significantly, to those inside and outside the world they evoke and inhabit.
Praise for Once Removed
"David Mann’s debut collection of stories about art and artists is elegant, plaintive, wry and urgent. It is an affectionate deliberation of the importance of art — and writing about it — in our current time of disquiet.” — Sean O’Toole, editor, curator and art critic
“The stories comprising Once Removed are consistently excellent: they are elegantly composed and provoking. Each depicts and evokes places, scenes, and interactions in subtle yet vivid ways. I have not been this compelled by a collection of short fiction in a considerable time.” — Prof. Michael Titlestad, Department of English, Wits.
“Stories about art, artists, writers — gently tussling with where they belong, and with ideas about ideas and what can seem like the travails of creative life. I enjoying the way Mann expresses human frailty, and social nuance. There is also a tender humour running through the stories like a silvery thread.” — Laurice Taitz, writer and editor
“The stories are richly varied… Moral piety is crushed, the lies built into the artworld exposed, the struggle of youth to carve out its path in an uncertain market, the book’s emotional core. As one of Mann’s characters remarks, ‘It is my job to gather the … words, images, infographics, and other rogue malleable things’. It is the last strung bead that is most telling. If anything, Mann’s keenly attuned and biting prose is rogue.” — Ashraf Jamal, art critic and cultural theorist
“Mann has the rare ability to be both cynical and kind, revealing an empathetic understanding and keen observance of human nature that is reflected in clear prose and unaffected dialogue.” — Steve Kretzmann, journalist and theatre critic
Once Removed in the press
Once Removed has received reviews, mentions and interviews in the following publications and platforms:
- Witsies with the writing edge: April 2024 (Wits Alumni)
- The art of writing a great short story (The Mail & Guardian)
- An insider’s perspective on SA’s curiously quirky art scene (Sunday Times)
- #MyJoburg: David Mann, writer and arts journalist (Johannesburg in Your Pocket)
- David Mann’s debut collection of short stories “Once Removed” (702 Radio)
- Launch of ‘Once Removed’ by David Mann (Sunday Times)
- David Mann talks about his debut anthology Once Removed (The Artlexcia Podcast)
- Once Removed: A clear view of art world bollocks (The Critter)
- Once Removed by David Mann is decent fiction that cuts into the heart and complexity of the South African contemporary arts scene (CityLife/Arts)
- Allan Kolski Horwitz interviews David Mann (African Books Collective)
Once Removed is available for purchase via me (davemann182@gmail.com) or my publisher, Botsotso (botsotsopublishing@gmail.com).
You can also find it at all good local bookstores, including:
- The Book Lounge (Cape Town)
- Clarke’s Bookshop (Cape Town)
- Love Books (Johannesburg)
- Bridge Books (Johannesburg)
- David Krut Bookstore (Johannesburg)
- Book Circle Capital (Johannesburg)
- The Atelier (Johannesburg)
- Lit Culture Books (Johannesburg)
- Ike’s Books (Durban)
- Exclusive Books (Various)
- Bargain Books (Various)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
David Mann is an award-winning writer, editor and art critic from Johannesburg, South Africa. His reviews and essays on art, as well as his short fiction, have appeared in journals and publications including Springerin (EU), Portside Review (AU), New Contrast (SA) and Contemporary Lynx (UK). He currently works as the writer for The Centre for the Less Good Idea. Once Removed is his debut collection of short fiction.
