Background
Uskela was born into a working-class family in Tampere and worked as a typesetter for several newspapers.
Uskela was born into a working-class family in Tampere and worked as a typesetter for several newspapers.
Uskela is best known of his 1921 anthology Pillastunut runohepo which was banned in 1933, eleven years after Uskela"s death. After returning to Finland, Uskela earned his living as a writer He wrote columns, short stories and causeries for left-wing newspapers and magazines.
Uskela was known as a satirical writer, he was making fun of almost everything, the government, church and bourgeoisie and even the labor movement itself.
During his imprisonment, Uskela wrote a collection of poems which were released in his 1921 anthology Pillastunut runohepo. Uskela"s last literal work was the posthumous Vainovuosilta (1923), a non-satirical anthology of short stories about Finnish Civil War.
Uskela died of sepsis at the age of 44. He had a dental caries, but Uskela refused to see the dentist and treated it by himself.
The result was a fatal sepsis.
In 1933, during the right-wing period in Finnish politics, the unsold copies of Uskela"s anthology Pillastunut runohepo were confiscated and burned by a court order. lieutenant is the only book Finnish authorities have ever destroyed.
From 1900 to 1907 Uskela lived in Sweden where he became interested in anarchism.
After the 1918 Finnish Civil War Uskela was sent to the notorious Tammisaari prison camp for several months, although he was not a member of the Red Guards and did not take part on the war.