diff --git a/dataset/database.py b/dataset/database.py
index c24a1d6..90d87f0 100644
--- a/dataset/database.py
+++ b/dataset/database.py
@@ -1,8 +1,6 @@
 import logging
 import threading
-
-import six
-from six.moves.urllib.parse import parse_qs, urlparse
+from urllib.parse import parse_qs, urlparse
 
 from sqlalchemy import create_engine
 from sqlalchemy.sql import text
@@ -182,7 +180,7 @@ class Database(object):
             table5 = db.create_table('population5',
                                      primary_id=False)
         """
-        assert not isinstance(primary_type, six.string_types), \
+        assert not isinstance(primary_type, str), \
             'Text-based primary_type support is dropped, use db.types.'
         table_name = normalize_table_name(table_name)
         with self.lock:
@@ -253,7 +251,7 @@ class Database(object):
 
         The returned iterator will yield each result sequentially.
         """
-        if isinstance(query, six.string_types):
+        if isinstance(query, str):
             query = text(query)
         _step = kwargs.pop('_step', QUERY_STEP)
         rp = self.executable.execute(query, *args, **kwargs)
diff --git a/dataset/util.py b/dataset/util.py
index b79a607..e7d1d34 100644
--- a/dataset/util.py
+++ b/dataset/util.py
@@ -1,11 +1,7 @@
-import six
 from hashlib import sha1
-try:
-    from collections.abc import Iterable
-except ImportError:
-    from collections import Iterable
+from urllib.parse import urlparse
 from collections import OrderedDict
-from six.moves.urllib.parse import urlparse
+from collections.abc import Iterable
 
 QUERY_STEP = 1000
 row_type = OrderedDict
@@ -58,13 +54,13 @@ class ResultIter(object):
 
 def normalize_column_name(name):
     """Check if a string is a reasonable thing to use as a column name."""
-    if not isinstance(name, six.string_types):
+    if not isinstance(name, str):
         raise ValueError('%r is not a valid column name.' % name)
 
     # limit to 63 characters
     name = name.strip()[:63]
     # column names can be 63 *bytes* max in postgresql
-    if isinstance(name, six.text_type):
+    if isinstance(name, str):
         while len(name.encode('utf-8')) >= 64:
             name = name[:len(name) - 1]
 
@@ -75,7 +71,7 @@ def normalize_column_name(name):
 
 def normalize_table_name(name):
     """Check if the table name is obviously invalid."""
-    if not isinstance(name, six.string_types):
+    if not isinstance(name, str):
         raise ValueError("Invalid table name: %r" % name)
     name = name.strip()[:63]
     if not len(name):
@@ -103,7 +99,7 @@ def ensure_tuple(obj):
     """Try and make the given argument into a tuple."""
     if obj is None:
         return tuple()
-    if isinstance(obj, Iterable) and not isinstance(obj, six.string_types):
+    if isinstance(obj, Iterable) and not isinstance(obj, (str, bytes)):
         return tuple(obj)
     return obj,
 
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 8ee8615..0bbd59b 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -17,7 +17,7 @@ setup(
     ],
     keywords='sql sqlalchemy etl loading utility',
     author='Friedrich Lindenberg, Gregor Aisch, Stefan Wehrmeyer',
-    author_email='friedrich@pudo.org',
+    author_email='friedrich.lindenberg@gmail.com',
     url='http://github.com/pudo/dataset',
     license='MIT',
     packages=find_packages(exclude=['ez_setup', 'examples', 'test']),
@@ -26,8 +26,7 @@ setup(
     zip_safe=False,
     install_requires=[
         'sqlalchemy >= 1.1.2',
-        'alembic >= 0.6.2',
-        'six >= 1.11.0'
+        'alembic >= 0.6.2'
     ],
     tests_require=[
         'nose'