Lovers without Residence.

London 1940. The destruction wreaked by German bombing raids makes the situation faced by the émigrés who fled the Nazis even more precarious. In Amersham, an hour away from the capital, two refugees from Vienna meet whose paths may never have crossed in their home town: the painter Marie-Louise von Motesiczky, a student of Max Beckmann from a wealthy aristocratic background, and the writer Elias Canetti, who is living the life of an artist on the breadline with his wife Veza. The painter gives the writer financial backing, they both support one another in their creative pursuits - and they fall in love. Fraught with doubts and insecurities, blighted by deep-seated anguish and emotional wounds, yet sustained by tenderness, caring and gratitude, the electrifying story of "Pio" and "Muli" spans more than fifty years. The letters paint a vivid picture of how two people who escaped a mortal situation gradually put down roots in their adopted homeland.