diff --git a/src/Easybook/Util/Slugger.php b/src/Easybook/Util/Slugger.php
index d9dca4e5..3bc0f87d 100644
--- a/src/Easybook/Util/Slugger.php
+++ b/src/Easybook/Util/Slugger.php
@@ -13,31 +13,49 @@
 
 class Slugger
 {
-    private $container;
+    private $app;
     private $separator;
     private $prefix;
     private $unique;
     
-    public function __construct($container, $separator = '-', $prefix = '', $unique = true)
+    public function __construct($app, $separator = '-', $prefix = '', $unique = true)
     {
-        $this->container = $container;
+        $this->app = $app;
         $this->separator = $separator;
         $this->prefix    = $prefix;
         $this->unique    = $unique;
     }
     
+    // adapted from http://cubiq.org/the-perfect-php-clean-url-generator
     public function slugify($string)
     {
-        // Copied from http://cubiq.org/the-perfect-php-clean-url-generator
-        $slug = iconv('UTF-8', 'ASCII//TRANSLIT', $string);
+        $string = strip_tags($string);
+
+        if (function_exists('iconv')) {
+            $slug = iconv('UTF-8', 'ASCII//TRANSLIT', $string);
+        }
+        else if (function_exists('mb_convert_encoding')) {
+            $slug = mb_convert_encoding($string, 'ASCII');
+        }
+        else {
+            // if both iconv and mb_* functions are unavailable, use a
+            // simple method to remove accents
+            // TODO: Is it better to just throw an exception?
+            $slug = strtr(
+                utf8_decode($string), 
+                utf8_decode('ŠŒŽšœžŸ¥µÀÁÂÃÄÅÆÇÈÉÊËÌÍÎÏÐÑÒÓÔÕÖØÙÚÛÜÝßàáâãäåæçèéêëìíîïðñòóôõöøùúûüýÿ'),
+                'SOZsozYYuAAAAAAACEEEEIIIIDNOOOOOOUUUUYsaaaaaaaceeeeiiiionoooooouuuuyy'
+            );
+        }
+
         $slug = preg_replace("/[^a-zA-Z0-9\/_|+ -]/", '', $slug);
         $slug = strtolower(trim($slug, $this->separator));
         $slug = preg_replace("/[\/_|+ -]+/", $this->separator, $slug);
-        
+
         $slug = $this->prefix.$slug;
-        
+
         // $slugs array must hold original slugs, without unique substring
-        $slugs = $this->container->append('publishing.slugs', $slug);
+        $slugs = $this->app->append('publishing.slugs', $slug);
 
         if ($this->unique) {
             $occurrences = array_count_values($slugs);