diff --git a/oaiharvest/metadata.py b/oaiharvest/metadata.py
index 5ccb6ad..cbfc20b 100644
--- a/oaiharvest/metadata.py
+++ b/oaiharvest/metadata.py
@@ -50,6 +50,7 @@ def __call__(self, metadata_element):
           [six.text_type(
               tostring(rec_element,
                     method="xml",
+                    encoding="unicode",
                     pretty_print=True))
            for rec_element
            in metadata_element])