title: How to convert a string with unicode in it to unicode using python
body: <p>I am importing a bunch of data from excel using xlrd on python</p>
  
  <p>I get all my data in string like this : text:u'L\xc9GENDE'</p>
  
  <p>I manipulate these data and I try to put them back in excel (using xlsxwriter) and when I do, I get the same block of text text:u'L\xc9GENDE' instead of LÉGENDE.</p>
  
  <p>What works for me :</p>
  
  <pre><code>#!/usr/bin/env python
  # -*- coding: latin-1 -*-
  import xlsxwriter
  import sys
  
  workbook = xlsxwriter.Workbook('hello.xlsx')
  worksheet = workbook.add_worksheet()
  data = u'L\xc9GENDE'
  worksheet.write('A1',data)
  workbook.close()
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>this will work, I will get LÉGENDE in the A1 cell</p>
  
  <p>but if I try to manipulate a string I have already to give me u'L\xc9GENDE', it will only show L\xc9GENDE in the A1 cell</p>
  
  <p>---- EDIT ----
  the code I use to retrieve data from excel</p>
  
  <pre><code>from xlrd import open_workbook
  
  def grabexcelfile():
      wb = open_workbook('leg.xls',encoding_override='latin-1')    
      log = []
      txt = ''
      for s in wb.sheets():         
          for row in range(s.nrows):              
              values = []
              for col in range(s.ncols):
                   txt = str(s.cell(row,col))
                   txt.replace('-',' ',10) 
                   log.append(txt) 
      return log            
  
  x = grabexcelfile()
  print type(x[0]),x[0]
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>the print gives me :  text:u'L\xc9GENDE'</p>