Timo Kustaa Mukka (17 December 1944 - 27 March 1973) was a Finnish author who wrote about the lives of people in Lapland.
Timo Mukka was born in Bollnäs in Sweden. During his life Mukka studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki and completed nine novels, written in a lyrical prose style, about the harsh conditions in Lapland, the region of his childhood and of most of his adult life. These books were published in the years between 1964 and 1970.
In the early 1960s there sprang up a movement in Finnish literature called spontaneous-confessional fiction. It was heavily influenced by the writings of Henry Miller. Its two most prominent representatives were the enfants terribles of modern Finnish literature, poet and translator Pentti Saarikoski and author Hannu Salama. Among the writers belonging to this movement, Mukka is considered the most original as well as the most consistent in his writing.
In 1973 there was a story on Mukka in the Finnish magazine Hymy which is believed to have contributed to his early demise.
Mukka died in Rovaniemi, capital of the Lapland region of Finland in 1973.
Mukka's first novel, The Earth is a Sinful Song, was in 1973 adapted into an extremely popular movie, The Land of Our Ancesters, the first film by the Finnish director, Rauni Mollberg. The film's cinema verite style reflects the author's style precisely. Upon its 1974 release, it was the most widely attended film in Finnish film history. However the Finnish National Film Board limited its distribution.