django - How to format unicode strings to utf-8 in Python? -

i'm reading in json string littered u'string' style strings. example:

 [      {       "!\/award\/award_honor\/honored_for": {         "award": {           "id": "\/en\/spiel_des_jahres"         },          "year": {           "value": "1996"         }       },        "guid": "#9202a8c04000641f80000000003a0ee6",        "type": "\/games\/game",        "id": "\/en\/el_grande",        "name": "el grande"     },      {       "!\/award\/award_honor\/honored_for": {         "award": {           "id": "\/en\/spiel_des_jahres"         },          "year": {           "value": "1995"         }       },        "guid": "#9202a8c04000641f80000000000495ec",        "type": "\/games\/game",        "id": "\/en\/settlers_of_catan",        "name": "settlers of catan"     }   ] 

if assign name = result.name. when log of pass value django template, displays u'dominion'

how format display dominion?

++ update ++

i think problem has printing values list or dictionary. example:

result = freebase.mqlread(query)  games = {} count = 0 r = result[0] name = r.name games["name"] = name, self.response.out.write(games["name"]) self.response.out.write(name) 

this displays as:

(u'dominion',)  // saved response dictionary, , printed dominion        // when calling value directly response 

i need iterate through array of json items , values being shown unicode. why?

the comma @ end of games["name"] = name, makes 1-tuple. remove it.