title: How to parse string to list without eval or ast.literal_eval
body: <p>Is there any way to convert a list containing unicode strings to a proper <code>list</code> without using <code>eval()</code> or <code>ast.literal_eval()</code> in Python?</p>
  
  <p>For example:</p>
  
  <pre><code>"[u'hello', u'hi']"
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>to</p>
  
  <pre><code>['hello', 'hi']
  </code></pre>