A book cafe and publishing house in the heart of Mizoram

In 2022, Anita Vanlalnunmawii, a former government employee, quit her job to start In Lehkha Foundation, under which she now runs a small publishing house and a book cafe.

As a young person in Aizawl, Mizoram, Anita had grown up surrounded by cafes and bookstores. However, they were all commercially driven endeavours with profit as their primary purpose. There was no space for people to come together and learn from one another or express themselves through writing that did not subscribe to stringent social ideals.

Anita had always wanted to start such an enterprise. But it was in 2022, when she became a fellow at Youth Involve—an incubation programme for social enterprises in the Northeast—that she finally had access the funding and mentorship she needed.

Located in a quiet lane in Aizawl, the In Lehkha book cafe has comfortable couches, bookshelves filled with both Mizo and English books, a small kitchen, and a cash counter where Anita serves tea, cookies, and conversations to anyone who visits. Anita describes the cafe’s atmosphere as homely, because it aims to provide a home away from home to young Mizo people. She explains, “A lot of people who visit us are those trying to break out of traditional societal systems and pave their own way. It’s a space for freedom of speech and expression.”   

Frequented by the city’s school- and college-going youth as well as young writers and musicians, the cafe hosts live concerts, book readings, meet-ups, fan events, poetry readings, and discussions. The cafe also caters to niche events, such a Harry Potter fan event that took place in October 2024. However, running such a space in an area without similar precedents has its own challenges.

Anita shares, “In the beginning, I had to figure out a way to make it work on my own. There was nothing or no one to look to on that front. I had to figure out what would or would not work for budding Mizo authors. [I had to ask,] ‘What are their needs?’”

She realised that young people tend to lean towards reading and writing in the Mizo language, which led her to stock more Mizo books in her cafe as well as publish more in the language.

Currently, most of her challenges are related to the publishing house. She says, “Printing is a huge cost that I have to bear because we don’t have an in-house printing machine. While many people reach out to me to get their work published, I am not able to take up much because printing, marketing, and the entire ecosystem is very resource-intensive. And in my case, it’s just me doing everything from start to finish.”

Rodingliana is an IDR Northeast Media Fellow 2024–25.

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Know more: Learn why a young person from Mizoram travelled to Assam to learn Hindi.

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