Words Without Borders: Yves Navarre Reading

French writer Yves Navarre stands on a stage in front of a microphone with papers in his hands reading from his work. The following are excerpts of his reading at the Words Without Borders opening night gala held August 5th, 1990 at the Arts Club.

Navarre: “Celebration ’90 is a clear and huge answer to all kinds of moral and physical plagues. I think my generation and maybe yours wasn’t insistent. Women and men, guys and dolls, older or younger, that we have been brought up and instructed to be sorry to be happy, to be guilty to be who we are and who we’ll be – who we will be. Happiness is no longer queer. Thanks to Celebration ’90 Vancouver BC. 27 countries, 7,000 athletes, 30,000 lesbians and gays – 50/50. Bravo! (applause) Media killers should throw their knives and guns into the garbage of despair; marketing drama and puritan cliché, forgetting that WE are alive, obliterating that we are who we are at last and in the storm.”

Navarre reads Number Seven is a series of “Private Statements”.

Navarre: “Private Statement number 7. Who said “no one flies so high as he knows not where he’s going.” Here’s what I am going to do. There is before Celebration ’90 Vancouver BC, and after Celebration ’90 Vancouver BC. Now we know better who and where. Who we are and where we are going.”