Autumn Manuscripts was Tasos Leivaditis' last book, comparable to Brecht’s Buckow elegies, Aragon’s Les Adieux and Ritsos’ last poems. Published shortly after his death, it’s a book of sly fables and strange dreams, farewells and departures, migrating birds and autumn leaves, embers and ash. Reflecting on the political defeats of his generation, the imminent collapse of the Soviet Union, the bitter divisions inside the Greek Communist Party and the wider demoralisation of the European left, Leivaditis contemplates the relationship between belief and doubt. ‘The old comrades have not died but reside now at the far end of the roads – whichever one you take you will run into them.’