diff -ur old/eltclsh-1.15/src/el.c new/eltclsh-1.15/src/el.c
--- old/eltclsh-1.15/src/el.c	2012-12-06 17:27:21.000000000 +0100
+++ new/eltclsh-1.15/src/el.c	2017-01-02 18:54:01.368436684 +0100
@@ -251,7 +251,7 @@
  */
 
 int
-elTclEventLoop(EditLine *el, char *c)
+elTclEventLoop(EditLine *el, wchar_t *c)
 {
    ElTclInterpInfo *iinfo;
    el_get(el, EL_CLIENTDATA, &iinfo);
@@ -262,13 +262,20 @@
 
    if (iinfo->preReadSz == 0 && feof(stdin)) {
       /* eof and no pending character: leave */
-      c[0] = '0';
+      c[0] = L'\0';
       return -1;
    }
 
-   c[0] = iinfo->preRead[0];
-   if (iinfo->preReadSz-- > 0)
-      memmove(iinfo->preRead, iinfo->preRead+1, iinfo->preReadSz);
+   int mbSz = mblen (iinfo->preRead, iinfo->preReadSz);
+   if (mbSz > 0) {
+      mbtowc (c, iinfo->preRead, mbSz);
+   }
+   if (iinfo->preReadSz - mbSz >= 0) {
+      iinfo->preReadSz -= mbSz;
+      memmove(iinfo->preRead, iinfo->preRead+mbSz, iinfo->preReadSz);
+   } else {
+      iinfo->preReadSz = 0;
+   }
 
    return 1;
 }
diff -ur old/eltclsh-1.15/src/eltclsh.h new/eltclsh-1.15/src/eltclsh.h
--- old/eltclsh-1.15/src/eltclsh.h	2011-11-02 11:02:07.000000000 +0100
+++ new/eltclsh-1.15/src/eltclsh.h	2017-01-02 18:41:57.834330526 +0100
@@ -112,7 +112,7 @@
 			Tcl_Obj *const objv[]);
 int		elTclHistory(ClientData data, Tcl_Interp *interp,
 			int objc, Tcl_Obj *const objv[]);
-int		elTclEventLoop(EditLine *el, char *c);
+int		elTclEventLoop(EditLine *el, wchar_t *c);
 void		elTclRead(ClientData data, int mask);
 int		elTclGetWindowSize(int fd, int *lins, int *cols);