There are books that document the world, and there are books that change how you see it. The Assouline Family has always known the difference. In our hundredth year, they chose to tell our story – and that collaboration is one we will carry for the next hundred years.

When the Assouline family reached out to collaborate on a centennial volume, we were deeply, genuinely humbled. Here was a family that has spent thirty years recognising the world’s most extraordinary stories – and they wanted to tell ours. Two families, two legacies, one shared belief that the things worth protecting are also the things worth celebrating. To stand alongside that legacy, in our hundredth year of all years, felt like recognition of everything this land and the Londolozi family stands for.

To hold an Assouline book is to understand immediately why certain stories can only be told in certain hands. The weight of it. The intention in every detail. It is publishing as an act of care – three decades of choosing the world’s most extraordinary subjects and doing right by them, one considered page at a time. And that care extends beyond the page. Assouline publishes with consciousness – working with sustainably sourced materials and responsible print partners, with an ongoing commitment to reducing the environmental footprint of their production. For a book whose soul is a century of conservation, it matters deeply that the object itself reflects those values. To be invited into that fold, to have a hundred years of this land’s story held within pages that Assouline has crafted with the same devotion we try to bring to the bush, is not something we will ever speak about casually. Some collaborations make sense on paper. This one made sense in the bones.

And so when Assouline opened its doors in London, at its flagship store, to celebrate our book’s arrival into the world, the evening carried that same weight. Not a party for the sake of one, but a gathering that felt like the natural conclusion of something years in the making. A room full of people who understood why they were there, conversations threading between old memories and new ones being made in real time, and somewhere in all of it, a book being held by people who understood what it meant to hold it. The Assouline family were the most gracious of hosts. And all of us, in our different ways, were there because of a piece of land in the Sabi Sand that has always had a way of drawing the right people toward it.

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There is a particular feeling you get when you stand inside a room full of people who are there because they genuinely care. Not obligation, not social necessity, but something more tender than that.

The Assouline family has built their entire house on the belief that beauty has value, that a book is not simply an object but a portal, and that certain stories deserve to be told in the most extraordinary format available.

They chose Londolozi. We are still catching our breath at that.

The book chronicles a hundred years of a family and a piece of ground that became inseparable from each other, and from the principles of restoration and right relations that have shaped everything since. To see it bound and beautiful in the hands of friends, strangers who became friends over the course of an evening, and long-time custodians of the Londolozi story, was quietly overwhelming.

It was so beautiful to be together.

The room held people who have been part of the Londolozi story for decades. Some have been visiting the reserve for nearly sixty years, watching the land heal itself back into wildness, knowing the leopards by name across three and four generations, and the family grow. Others were new to the story that evening, drawn in for the first time. The Varty family were there. The wider Londolozi family were there. And in that room in London, far from the Sand River, it felt exactly like Londolozi always feels: like the people who belong to this place had found each other again.

The centenary year was never meant to be a single celebration. It is, by its nature, a year of many small fires, each one lit in a different part of the world where Londolozi has left its mark. London was one such fire. There will be others. Each one is a gathering of the people and the stories and the partnerships that have made a hundred years not just possible, but meaningful.

If you weren’t in the room that evening, know that you were thought of. The Londolozi family extends far beyond any one event, and we are aware of that every time we gather in its name.

Something Dave shared has stayed with us since. Londolozi, he reminded us, is where the original conservation development model was born: the belief that the restoration of land, wildlife, and people are not separate endeavours but a single, inseparable one. Over the decades, many friends who have watched the sun rise from the back of a Londolozi Land Rover have carried that model out into the world – taking what they learned here and planting it somewhere new. Pockets of light, scattered across the globe, each one traceable back to Londolozi. That is the quiet legacy of this place. And if this book does anything – if it travels into the right hands and the right hearts – may it inspire a few more.

The music that moved through the evening deserves its own mention. If you’d like to carry a little of that feeling with you, we’ve put together the playlist from the night. Pour something beautiful, find a quiet corner, and let yourself be transported to Londolozi…

Londolozi: The Safari That Changed Everything is available now through the Assouline website. It is a volume we recommend without reservation, whether for your own home or as one of the more considered gifts you will give this year. Buy your copy here.

For those of you planning a visit to Londolozi, copies will also be waiting for you in the Londolozi Living Boutique, where you can hold it in your hands in the very landscape that inspired every page.

Every image in the book was taken at Londolozi – by our guides, trackers, family members, and alumni who have spent their lives learning to see this place clearly. The cover photograph, of the Ximungwe Female Leopard, was taken by ranger Matthew Rochford. The book did not need to look anywhere else for its beauty. It never could have.

This adventure and night wouldn’t have been possible without the support, effort, and care of so many people; Tara and Jessica Getty, we have the most wild and beautiful friendship with too many tales to share, but your introduction, with the help of the wonderful Glenn Spiro is the reason any of this exists. You built the bridge, and we are forever grateful that you did.

To Hailey Wist – the author who didn’t just visit Londolozi, but was changed by it. Hailey is a writer, editor, and producer whose work moves between culture, travel, and the human truths that live beneath the surface of both. She came to Londolozi as a guest. She left as something harder to define. In her own words: “The first time I saw a leopard on an afternoon game drive, some shored-up, brittle thing in me broke and I burst into tears.” That quality of seeing – the capacity to be changed by a place, and to render that change in language – is exactly what a hundred years of this story required. Hailey brought it in full. There is no version of this book without her. We owe you more than one evening can repay. Thank you.

To Clovis Taittinger and the Taittinger family, our relationship through Relais & Châteaux runs deep and stands strong. There is something entirely fitting about celebrating a century with champagne poured by people who understand that the finest things are always worth the patience they require. Thank you for the generosity and the spirit of celebration you brought to the room.

To the Jordan Family – for the wines in every glass, and for being exactly who you are. Londolozi alumni, yes, but more than that: the kindest and most generous of friends. And to Christy and Nick – the Mousehall Gin, the Family Spirit, the warmth you carry with you wherever you go. It was felt in every corner of the room that evening.

To Pete Anderson and Livingstone Supply Company, for the golden lanterns. In our hundredth year, that symbol means everything. To see them lining the room in London, far from the Lowveld, was to feel the thread of a hundred years pulling tight. Thank you.

To the Wedgewood Family – there is something profound about the coming together of family businesses, each carrying their own legacy with care. Your nougat added the sweetest possible note to the end of a very special evening. Thank you for being part of it.

To the guides, trackers, and alumni of Londolozi – the men and women who walk this land every day, who read its tracks and carry our guests into wonder. There is no Londolozi without you. You are the living thread between the wild and every person who has ever come home changed by it. And it is your images – your eyes, your patience, your artistry, your love of this place – that breathe life into every page of this book.

Our centenary intention is simple: Hold the Light.

For a hundred years, the lantern has burned at Londolozi – always deliberately, always with care. The light has been held by rangers and trackers, by family members and staff who have given their lives to this place, by guests who arrived as strangers and left as custodians of something they couldn’t quite name. This book is one more hand on the lantern. And the Assouline family, in choosing to tell our story, helped us hold the light a little higher.

To the Sand River, which has never asked for anything and has been a quiet witness to this hundred-year story: we are still watching. We are still learning. We are still, after a hundred years, only beginning.

Written with deep gratitude, in our 100th year.

Follow every chapter of Londolozi’s 100th year here.