make pprint speak your language in python console

gistfile1.py

# assuming you have UTF-8 locale
import pprint

orig_format = pprint.PrettyPrinter._format

def patched_format(self, object, stream, indent, allowance, context, level):
    if isinstance(object, unicode):
        stream.write("u\'")
        stream.write(object.encode('utf8'))
        stream.write("'")
    else:
        orig_format(self, object, stream, indent, allowance, context, level)

pprint.PrettyPrinter._format = patched_format