Uskela was born into a working-class family in
Tampere and worked as a typesetter for several newspapers. From 1900 to 1907 Uskela lived in
Sweden where he became interested in anarchism. 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. 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. 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 in
Helsinki, 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. == Selected works ==