diff --git a/IPython/frontend/qt/console/pygments_highlighter.py b/IPython/frontend/qt/console/pygments_highlighter.py
index a80bcec..ef964d0 100644
--- a/IPython/frontend/qt/console/pygments_highlighter.py
+++ b/IPython/frontend/qt/console/pygments_highlighter.py
@@ -174,7 +174,7 @@ class PygmentsHighlighter(QtGui.QSyntaxHighlighter):
     def _get_format_from_document(self, token, document):
         """ Returns a QTextCharFormat for token by
         """
-        code, html = self._formatter._format_lines([(token, 'dummy')]).next()
+        code, html = self._formatter._format_lines([(token, u'dummy')]).next()
         self._document.setHtml(html)
         return QtGui.QTextCursor(self._document).charFormat()