The API of the csv module in Python 2 is drastically different from the csv module in Python 3. This is due, for the most part, to the difference between str in Python 2 and Python 3.

The semantics of Python 3's version are more useful because they support unicode natively, while Python 2's csv does not.

pip install backports.csv

First make sure you're starting your file off right:

from backports import csv

Then be careful with your files to handle the encoding. I suggest using io.TextIOWrapper, opening your file in binary mode, and declaring your desired encoding when constructing your TextIOWrapper.

from backports import csv
from io import TextIOWrapper

def read_csv(filename):
    with TextIOWrapper(open(filename, 'rb'), encoding='utf-8') as f:
        reader = csv.reader(f)
        for row in reader:
            yield row

def write_csv(filename, rows):
    with TextIOWrapper(open(filename, 'wb'), encoding='utf-8') as f:
        for row in rows:
            writer.writerow(row)