World War Z Summary- Anmol Sethi

Chapter 2

            Chapter 2 of Max Brooks’ World War Z goes over the many people the author interviews. The first person he interviews is Kwang Jingshu who is a medical doctor in China. Dr. Kwang tells him about the first outbreak he encountered in a village called New Dachang. There were 7 victims and he meets with patient zero who is a young zombie boy. The zombie boy is able to break free of his constraints and Dr. Kwang rushes out of the room. He learns that the boy was bitten on a father son treasure-hunting trip. Dr. Kwang asks for help from Dr. Kuei. He sees the situation and sends help. The outbreak spreads to other countries despite their efforts.

            He then spoke to Nury Televaldi who was an entrepreneur or better known as a smuggler. He trafficked opium, diamonds, and slaves. He then started to traffic refugees along with everything else. He then meets with Stanley MacDonald who was a solider who had fought with zombies. He tells a story about his war experience and he develops posttraumatic stress disorder. The next person he talks to is Fernando Oliveira who is receiving a heart. Dr. Silvia performed the operation with Fernando as his assistant on someone named Herr Muller. This person becomes infected by the zombie virus and kills the doctor and Fernando shoots the zombie in the head and is not arrested. The police cover it up.

            He speaks to Jacob who lives in Cape Town, and he tells him about his run in with a zombie. He manages to get away and ends up in the hospital. He then travels to Israel where he meets Jurgen Warmbrunn who was a former spy. He uses information about corpses in Cape Town to decode messages and present it to the government. His last interview is with Saladin Kader who is now a professor but used to work at a starbucks. He tells his story about how he is put into a resettlement camp with his family. An Israeli saves his family and they witnessed the beginning of the Israeli civil war.

This chapter is important in the larger content because it sets up the background of his story. It shows the research he did in order to get the information for his novel. Everything he writes in this chapter sets up the argument he will make throughout the novel. I chose this chapter because I like the different interviews and I found the different stories interesting. I liked that the author has done a lot of research in order to produce his novel. I didn’t like that he had very few interviews. I think the author should have included more interviews.