George Kasonde was born in 1955 in the mining town of Kitwe in Zambia. He went to Mukuba Secondary School after which he was employed by Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines where he received training in Personnel Management and Industrial Relations at the President’s Citizenship College (now Mulungushi University). In 1978, whilst working for the Mines, he became a newspaper columnist with the Sunday Times of Zambia. Writing under the pseudonym Silver Banda, his series Silver Lining satirised social life in urban areas. In 1994, he joined Zambia National Tender Board where he eventually became Director of Human Resource, a position he held until his retirement in 2010.

The Padre and the Pagans of Ituna is his first novel