Anton McCabe is writing the story of film-maker Neville Presho and wants to hear from some of his old friends in Queenstown.
In November, the Queenstown Times reported Mr Presho was awarded 46,000 ($NZ94,504.20) in compensation for his lost house.
Mr Presho lived in Queenstown between 1990 and 2000, working as a landscape gardener and as a projectionist for the Skyline Gondola.
In the early 1980s, before he moved to New Zealand, Mr Presho had bought the 150-year-old house on Tory Island, County Donegal.
It was burnt on January 14, 1993, and within nine months, a nearby hotel owner had demolished the house and built a car park on the land.
Mr Presho fought for 16 years to have the case heard in court. Last November, Mr Justice Roderick Murphy ruled the hotel's owner, Patrick Doohan, should pay damages and costs of 46,000 to Mr Presho.
Mr Presho now lives in Holywood, County Down.
He said he would love to return to Queenstown, where his children, aged 18, 16, 13, and 11, were born.
Mr Presho also lived on Stewart Island for three years where he fished for crayfish and was involved in building the island's power scheme.
Mr McCabe said he was fascinated by the story and his book is due to be published in October by Derry-based publishers Drumkeen Press.
The book, as yet, has no title.
"In the '90s and early noughties, I was a regular visitor to Tory Island.
"Islanders had told me the story about the destruction of the house though they didn't want their names used.
"Hotel owner Patrick Doohan was the richest and most powerful man in a very small place.
"I thought it was a great story, but that I'd never get a chance to do anything on it for legal reasons," he said.
However, in 2003 he met Mr Presho in a chance encounter on the Tory Island ferry.
With his permission, Mr McCabe followed the search for justice which, following the court ruling, can now be told.
Anyone who remembered Mr Presho and his wife Fiona should contact amccabejournalist@hotmail.com
