"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 enjoy the way Mann expresses human frailty and social nuance. There is also a tender humor 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

"The stories explore how one’s life can be changed, in ways both profound and banal, by interaction with art and performance. And he does so with a wonderful elegance and an admirable economy of words." — Rodney Ghobril, The Mail & Guardian

"David Mann’s short story collection Once Removed is inventive, and in tune with what it means to be a young artist in a contemporary struggle for literary self-identity" — Kris Van der Bijl, The Johannesburg Review of Books

"This collection... is good fiction, superb even. It will take you to places and scenes in Cape Town, and to Johannesburg. In essence Once Removed is about South African art and performance, told in a creative and engaging manner that will not bore you, but make you look on the South African contemporary art scene differently." — Edward Tsumele, CITYLIFE/ARTS Editor