diff --git a/plugins/proxy.py b/plugins/proxy.py
index d70a967a5..e8782e6e4 100755
--- a/plugins/proxy.py
+++ b/plugins/proxy.py
@@ -158,15 +158,23 @@ class _IkiWikiExtPluginXMLRPCHandler(object):
     def send_rpc(self, cmd, in_fd, out_fd, *args, **kwargs):
         xml = _xmlrpc_client.dumps(sum(kwargs.items(), args), cmd)
         self._debug_fn(
-            "calling ikiwiki procedure `{0}': [{1}]".format(cmd, xml))
-        _IkiWikiExtPluginXMLRPCHandler._write(out_fd, xml.encode('utf8'))
+            "calling ikiwiki procedure `{0}': [{1}]".format(cmd, repr(xml)))
+        if isinstance(xml, unicode):
+            encoded = xml.encode('utf8')
+        else:
+            encoded = xml
+        _IkiWikiExtPluginXMLRPCHandler._write(out_fd, encoded)
 
         self._debug_fn('reading response from ikiwiki...')
 
-        xml = _IkiWikiExtPluginXMLRPCHandler._read(in_fd).decode('utf8')
+        response = _IkiWikiExtPluginXMLRPCHandler._read(in_fd)
+        if isinstance(response, unicode):
+            xml = response.encode('utf8')
+        else:
+            xml = response
         self._debug_fn(
             'read response to procedure {0} from ikiwiki: [{1}]'.format(
-                cmd, xml))
+                cmd, repr(xml)))
         if xml is None:
             # ikiwiki is going down
             self._debug_fn('ikiwiki is going down, and so are we...')