diff --git a/src/calibre/ebooks/oeb/base.py b/src/calibre/ebooks/oeb/base.py
index bf9287d53a..3b8d13fb3f 100644
--- a/src/calibre/ebooks/oeb/base.py
+++ b/src/calibre/ebooks/oeb/base.py
@@ -454,7 +454,14 @@ class DirContainer(object):
             path = os.path.join(self.rootdir, self._unquote(path))
         except ValueError: #Happens if path contains quoted special chars
             return False
-        return os.path.isfile(path)
+        try:
+            return os.path.isfile(path)
+        except UnicodeEncodeError:
+            # On linux, if LANG is unset, the os.stat call tries to encode the
+            # unicode path using ASCII
+            # To replicate try:
+            # LANG=en_US.ASCII python -c "import os; os.stat('Espa\xf1a')"
+            return os.path.isfile(path.encode(filesystem_encoding))
 
     def namelist(self):
         names = []