Eva van Outryve de Crommelynck

Eva de Crommelynck is a Belgian aristocrat, daughter of famous composer Vyvyan Ayrs. First appearing in Cloud Atlas as a beautiful young woman, she had a long and eventful life leading her to live as a semi-reclusive in the small English village of Black Swan Green in David Mitchell's eponymous novel.

In Cloud Atlas

After Cloud Atlas

Much of what happened to Eva de Crommelynck after the events of Cloud Atlas can be reconstituted from random anecdotes she shares about her life with the young Jason Taylor in Black Swan Green. These memories suggests a very eventful life where she met all kinds of celebrities of the times - but could also be understood as exagerations from her part.

From what we can gather, she

She apparently was at some point one of Picasso's muse or model, which would explained why biographers of the famous cubist would keep pestering her with interviews.

The poet Robert Graves wrote her a poem, which according to her wasn't "his best". She was also the center of the affections of William Carlos Williams who begged her to elope with him, but she refused his advances as he was too poor as the time.

She and her husband owned for some time a colony in Taormina, where novelist Henry Miller visited them and alledgedly courted her. At some undertermined point, she also had to handle an infatuated Ernest Hemingway.

Her couple also spend some time in their residence in Geneva, where their neighbour across the lake happened to be Charlie Chaplin (which would place their encounter(s) anywhere between 1953 to mid-70s)

She assisted Amnesty International for several years.

Black Swan Green