diff --git a/dev-python/ukkonen/ukkonen-1.0.1-r1.ebuild b/dev-python/ukkonen/ukkonen-1.0.1-r1.ebuild
index 2aa653ee78a37..6937f3cb30639 100644
--- a/dev-python/ukkonen/ukkonen-1.0.1-r1.ebuild
+++ b/dev-python/ukkonen/ukkonen-1.0.1-r1.ebuild
@@ -3,8 +3,10 @@
 
 EAPI=8
 
+DISTUTILS_EXT=1
 DISTUTILS_USE_PEP517=setuptools
 PYTHON_COMPAT=( python3_{9..11} pypy3 )
+
 inherit distutils-r1
 
 DESCRIPTION="Implementation of bounded Levenshtein distance (Ukkonen)"