diff --git a/src/obj.js b/src/obj.js
index 3432ac68d..acc9e1284 100644
--- a/src/obj.js
+++ b/src/obj.js
@@ -140,7 +140,12 @@ var Catalog = (function CatalogClosure() {
 
         if (isName(type) && isName(subtype) &&
             type.name === 'Metadata' && subtype.name === 'XML') {
-          metadata = stringToPDFString(bytesToString(stream.getBytes()));
+          // XXX: This should examine the charset the XML document defines,
+          // however since there are currently no real means to decode
+          // arbitrary charsets, let's just hope that the author of the PDF
+          // was reasonable enough to stick with the XML default charset,
+          // which is UTF-8.
+          metadata = stringToUTF8String(bytesToString(stream.getBytes()));
         }
       }
 
diff --git a/src/util.js b/src/util.js
index 90e6cee5d..fe5d895e3 100644
--- a/src/util.js
+++ b/src/util.js
@@ -302,6 +302,10 @@ function stringToPDFString(str) {
   return str2;
 }
 
+function stringToUTF8String(str) {
+  return decodeURIComponent(escape(str));
+}
+
 function isBool(v) {
   return typeof v == 'boolean';
 }