diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index c1af6aab8..4a2f7d80d 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -7,6 +7,9 @@
 - Adjusted stacklevel of warnings to point to user code when possible. @rly [#1166](https://github.com/hdmf-dev/hdmf/pull/1166)
 - Improved "already exists" error message when adding a container to a `MultiContainerInterface`. @rly [#1165](https://github.com/hdmf-dev/hdmf/pull/1165)
 
+### Bug fixes
+- Fixed bug when converting string datasets from Zarr to HDF5. @oruebel [#1171](https://github.com/hdmf-dev/hdmf/pull/1171)
+
 ## HDMF 3.14.3 (July 29, 2024)
 
 ### Enhancements
@@ -22,10 +25,10 @@ is available on build (during the write process), but not on read of a dataset f
 - Warn when unexpected keys are present in specs. @rly [#1134](https://github.com/hdmf-dev/hdmf/pull/1134)
 - Support appending to zarr arrays. @mavaylon1 [#1136](https://github.com/hdmf-dev/hdmf/pull/1136)
 - Support specifying "value" key in DatasetSpec. @rly [#1143](https://github.com/hdmf-dev/hdmf/pull/1143)
-- Add support for numpy 2. @rly [#1139](https://github.com/hdmf-dev/hdmf/pull/1139)
+- Added support for numpy 2. @rly [#1139](https://github.com/hdmf-dev/hdmf/pull/1139)
 
 ### Bug fixes
-- Fix iterator increment causing an extra +1 added after the end of completion. @CodyCBakerPhD [#1128](https://github.com/hdmf-dev/hdmf/pull/1128)
+- Fixed iterator increment causing an extra +1 added after the end of completion. @CodyCBakerPhD [#1128](https://github.com/hdmf-dev/hdmf/pull/1128)
 
 ## HDMF 3.14.1 (June 6, 2024)
 
diff --git a/src/hdmf/backends/hdf5/h5tools.py b/src/hdmf/backends/hdf5/h5tools.py
index da07a6a5c..9b06e80f1 100644
--- a/src/hdmf/backends/hdf5/h5tools.py
+++ b/src/hdmf/backends/hdf5/h5tools.py
@@ -923,6 +923,12 @@ def __resolve_dtype__(cls, dtype, data):
         # TODO: These values exist, but I haven't solved them yet
         # binary
         # number
+
+        # Use text dtype for Zarr datasets of strings. Zarr stores variable length strings
+        # as objects, so we need to detect this special case here
+        if hasattr(data, 'attrs') and 'zarr_dtype' in data.attrs and data.attrs['zarr_dtype'] == 'str':
+            return cls.__dtypes['text']
+
         dtype = cls.__resolve_dtype_helper__(dtype)
         if dtype is None:
             dtype = cls.get_type(data)
diff --git a/src/hdmf/build/objectmapper.py b/src/hdmf/build/objectmapper.py
index b5815ee2c..58dcf19f6 100644
--- a/src/hdmf/build/objectmapper.py
+++ b/src/hdmf/build/objectmapper.py
@@ -209,10 +209,18 @@ def convert_dtype(cls, spec, value, spec_dtype=None):  # noqa: C901
         if (isinstance(value, np.ndarray) or
                 (hasattr(value, 'astype') and hasattr(value, 'dtype'))):
             if spec_dtype_type is _unicode:
-                ret = value.astype('U')
+                if hasattr(value, 'attrs') and 'zarr_dtype' in value.attrs:
+                    # Zarr stores strings as objects, so we cannot convert to unicode dtype
+                    ret = value
+                else:
+                    ret = value.astype('U')
                 ret_dtype = "utf8"
             elif spec_dtype_type is _ascii:
-                ret = value.astype('S')
+                if hasattr(value, 'attrs') and 'zarr_dtype' in value.attrs:
+                    # Zarr stores strings as objects, so we cannot convert to unicode dtype
+                    ret = value
+                else:
+                    ret = value.astype('S')
                 ret_dtype = "ascii"
             else:
                 dtype_func, warning_msg = cls.__resolve_numeric_dtype(value.dtype, spec_dtype_type)