psql=# create database novels owner ron encoding 'UTF8';

##</code><code>##

  "author","category","title","rating","comment","isbn","publisher","publication_date","review_date"
  "Colm Tóibín","Novel","The South","***","-","-","Picador","-","2012-06-12"

##</code><code>##

  use feature 'unicode_strings';
  use open qw/:std :utf8/;
  ...
  # DBIx::Class:
  my($rs) = $schema -> resultset('Author');
  my($result);
  for (sort keys %$data)
  {
    $result = $rs -> create({name => $_, upper_name => uc $_});
  }

##</code><code>##

  novels=# select * from authors where name like 'Colm%';
   id  |    name     | upper_name
  -----+-------------+-------------
   100 | Colm Tóibín | COLM TóIBíN
  (1 row)

##</code><code>##

  use feature qw/say unicode_strings/;
  use open qw/:std :utf8/;
  use Encode qw/decode encode/;
  ...
  my($row)    = $sth -> fetchall_hashref('id');
  my($name)   = $$row{100}{name};
  my($decode) = decode('utf8', $name);
  my($json)   = JSON::XS -> new -> utf8(0) -> encode({name => $decode});

  say "name:   $name.";
  say "decode: $decode.";
  say "json:   $json.";

##</code><code>##

  ron@zigzag:~/perl.modules/Local-Novels$ perl scripts/test.utf8.pl
  name:   Colm Tóibín.
  decode: Colm Tóibín.
  json:   {"name":"Colm Tóibín"}.

##</code><code>##

  <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />

##</code><code>##

  use feature 'unicode_strings';
  use Encode 'decode';
  ...
  while (my $item = $rs -> next)
  {
  	push @$result,
  	{
  		author_name => decode('utf8', $item -> author -> name),
  ...
  	}
  }
  ...
  $output = {results => $result};

  return JSON::XS -> new -> utf8(0) -> encode($output);

##</code><code>##

  return JSON::XS -> new -> utf8(1) -> encode($output);