diff --git a/src/utils.js b/src/utils.js
index 8650e45f..4c12f532 100644
--- a/src/utils.js
+++ b/src/utils.js
@@ -691,13 +691,13 @@ function getModernWebpackImporter(loaderContext, implementation, loadPaths) {
           // TODO simplify in the next major release and pass URL
           const canonicalPath = url.fileURLToPath(canonicalUrl);
 
-          loaderContext.fs.readFile(canonicalPath, "utf8", (err, content) => {
+          loaderContext.fs.readFile(canonicalPath, (err, content) => {
             if (err) {
               reject(err);
               return;
             }
 
-            resolve(content);
+            resolve(content.toString("utf8"));
           });
         });