diff --git a/python/pyarrow/_parquet.pyx b/python/pyarrow/_parquet.pyx
index 5d54551d7a8..be8e3634852 100644
--- a/python/pyarrow/_parquet.pyx
+++ b/python/pyarrow/_parquet.pyx
@@ -1159,7 +1159,7 @@ cdef shared_ptr[WriterProperties] _create_writer_properties(
     elif compression is not None:
         for column, codec in compression.iteritems():
             check_compression_name(codec)
-            props.compression(column, compression_from_name(codec))
+            props.compression(tobytes(column), compression_from_name(codec))
 
     if isinstance(compression_level, int):
         props.compression_level(compression_level)
diff --git a/python/pyarrow/tests/test_parquet.py b/python/pyarrow/tests/test_parquet.py
index 37e104303af..ae3dd0b3094 100644
--- a/python/pyarrow/tests/test_parquet.py
+++ b/python/pyarrow/tests/test_parquet.py
@@ -838,6 +838,11 @@ def test_compression_level(use_legacy_dataset):
                      compression_level=5,
                      use_legacy_dataset=use_legacy_dataset)
 
+    # Check that the user can provide a compression per column
+    _check_roundtrip(table, expected=table,
+                     compression={'a': "gzip", 'b': "snappy"},
+                     use_legacy_dataset=use_legacy_dataset)
+
     # Check that the user can provide a compression level per column
     _check_roundtrip(table, expected=table, compression="gzip",
                      compression_level={'a': 2, 'b': 3},