A collection of seven informative essays about contemporary life in Cuba, all originally published in Envio, the magazine of the Jesuit University in Managua, Nicaragua. Maria Lopez Vigil and her parents left Cuba in 1961, not because they feared the loss of economic privilege as a result of the revolution, but because they were profoundly Catholic. In adulthood Vigil returned to her homeland to investigate the effects of "the dazzling, seductive revolution" which she had foregone. A kind of hopeful objectivity distinguishes her fact-filled essays, for Virgil possesses both a native's patriotic optimism and a nonresident's emotional distance.  (CBA47, $15.95)