diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index d9f62bec..4b742900 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
 import ast
+import codecs
 import re
 import sys
 
@@ -61,7 +62,7 @@ setup(
     name="graphene",
     version=version,
     description="GraphQL Framework for Python",
-    long_description=open("README.rst").read(),
+    long_description=codecs.open("README.rst", "r", "utf-8").read(),
     url="https://github.com/graphql-python/graphene",
     author="Syrus Akbary",
     author_email="me@syrusakbary.com",