A few weeks became four years, and by the time he moved to Canberra in 2011, he was itching to write a book that would make sense of his experiences.

But rather than a stiff academic tome, he wanted to convey the energy of the people and the beauty of the country itself.

"I just was totally smitten by the place. I think it's a fantastic place, and every day I was there I found something interesting about it," he said.

"It was the fact that it's full of human beings and characters and people who'd had long histories with each other and people who were exuberantly trying to build up their own country."

The resulting book, Beloved Land: Stories, Struggles and Secrets from Timor-Leste, published in 2013, struck exactly the right chord with readers and reviewers alike, and has been named ACT Book of the Year.

The book triumphed over a record field of 48 nominations and four others in the shortlist, as well as taking out the inaugural People's Choice Award.

Dr Peake, who works as a researcher at the Australian National University College of Asia and the Pacific, said he was thrilled to take home the $10,000 award, and that so many people had enjoyed the book.

"I wrote it as a way that would actually explain to the lay reader what Timor is, what building a state looks like," he said.

"I have no idea who was on the jury, but I imagine the jury wasn't composed of East Timor experts, so the fact that there was something that they saw in the book that they liked about it is really pleasing and really gratifying, because it's a really lonely experience writing a book, you never know if anyone's going to read it or not, so it's a really nice fillip."

Dr Peake had originally intended to carry out research on East Timorese war veterans, but ended up taking up a position as policy advisor for the Australian Federal Police.

It was an unusual position for a Northern Irishman who "never met a rule I didn't want to break", but it gave him the chance to stay in the country and immerse himself in the culture.

He said there were surprising parallels with his home country.

"The largest ex-patriate Timorese community is in Northern Ireland, where I'm from," he said.

"One of the things that I talk about in the book is the Irish and the Timorese are very far apart in a lot of ways, but we're quite similar in lots of other ways. We're recovering from conflict, we're really family based… the past is not yet past in Ireland and Timor.

"It made sense to me that institutions are composed full of people, not necessarily composed full of policies, so when everyone was worried about the medium-term strategic development plan, it didn't really concern me, because I knew what made the country tick, which is what makes Ireland tick – it's people and people's relationships with each other. So there's a kind of Irish angle to the book, and I'd guess you'd describe it as a mix of memoir and reportage and history."

The judging panel described Beloved Land as "a compelling work merging the personal with the historical ... surprising, sometimes confronting and very poignant".

In announcing the winner, ACT arts minister Joy Burch congratulated the other shortlisted authors - Scott Bridges for 18 Days: Al Jazeera English and the Egyptian Revolution, Clive Hamilton for Earthmasters: Playing God with the Climate, Lesley Lebkowicz for The Petrov Poems and Lucy Neave for Who We Were.

Beloved Land: Stories, Struggles and Secrets from Timor-Leste is published by Scribe.