PHIL MILLER and JAMES MORGAN

Glasgow's literary festival, Aye Write!, closed this weekend with the first winner of its literary award announced - and a record number of visitors.

Karen Cunningham, director of the festival, said that it had surpassed all expectations and was on course to surpass last year's figure of 25,000 visitors.

The closing weekend saw Dan Rhodes announced as the first winner of the Clare Maclean Prize for Scottish Fiction, the festival's new annual prize for the best book.

Rhodes's novel, Gold, was chosen from a shortlist of six.

The Clare Maclean Prize for Scottish Fiction is dedicated to the late partner of Professor Mike Gonzalez, the professor of Latin American Studies at the University of Glasgow, and offers the winner £3000.

Mr Gonzalez said: "Clare would be delighted. It was a wonderful selection of books - a genuinely impressive shortlist, and she'd be pleased that Dan Rhodes had won.

"His book is beautifully crafted and I have just found out that one of the last authors Clare recommended to a friend was Dan Rhodes."

The Edinburgh-based author said: "I didn't expect it at all. When I saw the shortlist I felt like a small boy in a room full of adults."

The Aye Write! Bank of Scotland book festival, for which The Herald is media partner, saw figures such as Louis de Bernieres, Tony Parsons, Joanne Harris, Blake Morrison and Kathleen Turner appear at a series of events at the Mitchell Library, Glasgow.