PETALING JAYA: For the first time, two short stories from three Malaysians have been shortlisted for the 2019 Commonwealth Short Story Prize, one of the major short story writing competitions in the world.Pengap, a Malay story written by Lokman Hakim and translated into English by Adriana Nordin Manan, and My Mother Pattu by Saras Manickam join 21 other shortlisted stories.

The trio are nominated under the Asian region category alongside Indian author Kiran Doshi, for his story Miss Coelho, English Teacher.Lokman said it felt like it was just too good to be true.