diff --git a/pkgs/by-name/li/liborcus/package.nix b/pkgs/by-name/li/liborcus/package.nix
index 4e3a48d10b8b..d50b469fc91e 100644
--- a/pkgs/by-name/li/liborcus/package.nix
+++ b/pkgs/by-name/li/liborcus/package.nix
@@ -25,6 +25,7 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
   nativeBuildInputs = [
     autoreconfHook
     pkg-config
+    python3.pythonOnBuildForHost
   ];
 
   buildInputs = [
@@ -35,6 +36,26 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
     zlib
   ];
 
+  preCheck =
+    ''
+      patchShebangs test/python
+    ''
+    + lib.optionalString stdenv.hostPlatform.isDarwin ''
+      export DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH=$DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH''${DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH:+:}${
+        lib.concatMapStringsSep ":" (d: "$(pwd)/src/${d}/.libs") [
+          "liborcus"
+          "parser"
+          "python"
+          "spreadsheet"
+        ]
+      }
+    '';
+
+  strictDeps = true;
+  doCheck = true;
+  enableParallelBuilding = true;
+  enableParallelChecking = true;
+
   meta = with lib; {
     description = "Collection of parsers and import filters for spreadsheet documents";
     homepage = "https://gitlab.com/orcus/orcus";