Iraqis and foreigners flooded the 46th annual Baghdad International Book Fair to see the latest publications of hundreds of Iraqi and Arab publishing houses, enjoy musical performances and poetry evenings and meet dozens of well-known writers, economists and other public figures.

But the bustling cultural scene, which will run through Feb. 18, is darkened by the shadow of a terrific crime targeting one of Iraq's outspoken novelists, Alaa Mashzoub, earlier this month. On the evening of Feb. 2, Mashzoub was shot in front of his Karbala home and died at the scene at the age of 50.

Such a crime in the holy city, where security is very tight, frightened and angered Iraqi intellectuals and filled the social media with various speculation about the crime's motivation.

"It takes a bastard and a coward to shoot an unarmed person who has nothing but words and dreams," wrote author Ahmed Saadawi in a Facebook post. Saadawi, whose novel "Frankenstein in Baghdad" won the 2014 International Prize for Arabic Fiction and found success worldwide, urged the local Karbala authorities to bring his killers to court as soon as possible.