diff --git a/patacrep/authors.py b/patacrep/authors.py
index 3a3e8600..8cb66962 100644
--- a/patacrep/authors.py
+++ b/patacrep/authors.py
@@ -3,14 +3,27 @@
 
 """Authors string management."""
 
+import logging
 import re
 
+LOGGER = logging.getLogger(__name__)
+
 DEFAULT_AUTHWORDS = {
         "after": ["by"],
         "ignore": ["unknown"],
         "sep": ["and"],
         }
 
+def to_utf8(string):
+    """Convert a string (encoded in unicode or iso-8859-1 to utf-8"""
+    if type(string) is unicode:
+        return string.encode('utf-8')
+    elif type(string) is str:
+        return string.decode('iso-8859-1').encode('utf-8')
+    else:
+        LOGGER.warning("Ignoring a word I can not decode...")
+        return None
+
 def compile_authwords(authwords):
     """Convert strings of authwords to compiled regular expressions.
 
@@ -30,6 +43,7 @@ def compile_authwords(authwords):
             re.compile(r"^(.*)%s +(.*)$" % word, re.LOCALE)
             for word in ([" %s" % word for word in authwords['sep']] + [','])
             ]
+    authwords['ignore'] = [to_utf8(word) for word in authwords['ignore'] if to_utf8(word)]
 
     return authwords
 
diff --git a/patacrep/index.py b/patacrep/index.py
index 9ee5e99d..07c1d558 100755
--- a/patacrep/index.py
+++ b/patacrep/index.py
@@ -41,9 +41,9 @@ def process_sxd(filename):
     Return an Index object.
     """
     data = []
-    with codecs.open(filename, 'r', 'utf-8') as index_file:
+    with codecs.open(filename, 'r', 'iso-8859-1') as index_file:
         for line in index_file:
-            data.append(line.strip())
+            data.append(line.strip().encode('utf-8'))
 
     i = 1
     idx = Index(data[0])