Bolko Bullerdiek

Bolko Bullerdiek (Mbozi, Tanzania, 9 January 1939) is a German author writing in Low Saxon (also known as Low German, Plattdüütsch) who has helped promote the teaching of Low Saxon in German schools, particularly in Hamburg.

Youth and education Bullerdiek was born in 1939 on Moravian mission station Rungwe near Tukuyu, Tanzania (then Tanganyika), where his father was a workman. Tanganyika was then a British colony where many Germans remained from the time the territory had been part of German East Africa. In World War II his father was interned by the British; later the family were compelled to leave Tanganyika and return to Germany. His father subsequently joined the Wehrmacht and was killed in action in North Africa.

Bullerdiek grew up in Bookholzberg, currently in the municipality of Ganderkesee in Lower Saxony. His mother provided for herself and her two sons by working as a seamstress. Bullerdiek picked up the Low Saxon language passively, later saying: "Plattdüütsch is de Spraak von mien Mudder, man nich mien Mudderspraak" (Low Saxon is my mother's language, but not my mother tongue).

Bullerdiek has two adult daughters and divides his time between Hamburg, his main residence, and Gunneby in the municipality of Ulsnis, Schleswig-Holstein. He is active in Quickborn, the Hamburg association for Low Saxon language and literature, and has contributed columns to newspapers. In 2016 he received the Borsla Prize and in 2018 the town of Kappeln conferred its Low Saxon literary prize on him in recognition of his life's work.