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A poet from Canada and a photographer with an exquisite eye for detail offer a captivating, unexpectedly lyrical portrait of a Cuba that may disappear in the near future.

Because normalization of ties with the island recognized by about every country but the United States would inevitably mean the arrival of McDonalds, 7-11s and Wal-Marts. Already European and Canadian companies are starting to impact the economy and look of Havana. Full trade with the United States would crash open the museum of a nation frozen in time, as recorded in this poignant book.

This is not a political book. It is written as though the nation of Cuba sat down for a portrait -- a fitting analogy, given its lush black and white photographs that capture moments in the daily life of Cubans.

In the introduction to "Cuba: Grace Under Pressure" (the latter phrase take from Ernest Hemingway's definition of courage), the Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood writes of Rosemary Sullivan, the prose author of "Cuba": "As a poet and writer, she knows that life is lived not as theory but as practice, that we exist on earth not as ideas but as living creatures, and that you can understand nothing about a place without listening to individual people and their stories. She has concerned herself with intense particulars.

"This is a book about looking and listening, then: but looking and listening are not passive activities. They require the will to hear and see, and also the desire to do so."

Of the now deceased photographer, Malcolm David Batty, Atwood notes that he loved Cuba: "He loved looking at it and and he loved taking pictures of it. Most of all, he loved the people and the music."

Rosemary Sullivan, whose lovingly drafted prose accompanies Batty's tender photographs writes, in her preface: "But what if one were to suspend one's preconceptions and turn to Cuba with fresh eyes, to enter Cuba through its arts, its culture, its people? The story of Cuba is a family story, a story of a small island with a culture that has international reach. This book will attempt to capture the joy and fierce independence of a people who clearly love their country."

And that it does.

Meet the people of Cuba in "Grace Under Pressure."

Since only a few Americans can legally travel to the island, just 90 miles from Key West, Florida, this may be your only chance for awhile.

But don't buy this book for politics; it's about the spirit and culture of a nation and the daily lives of its people, lovingly rendered and photographed.

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