diff --git a/examples/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/examples/pythonconverters/AvroGenericConverter.scala b/examples/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/examples/pythonconverters/AvroGenericConverter.scala
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000..d2b60804cecdf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/examples/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/examples/pythonconverters/AvroGenericConverter.scala
@@ -0,0 +1,80 @@
+/*
+ * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
+ * contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
+ * this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
+ * The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
+ * (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
+ * the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+ *
+ *    http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+ *
+ * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+ * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+ * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+ * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+ * limitations under the License.
+ */
+
+
+package org.apache.spark.examples.pythonconverters
+
+import org.apache.spark.api.python.Converter
+import collection.JavaConversions._
+
+import org.apache.avro.generic.GenericRecord
+import org.apache.avro.mapred.AvroKey
+import org.apache.avro.mapreduce.AvroKeyInputFormat
+import org.apache.avro.Schema.Field
+import org.apache.avro.Schema
+import org.apache.avro.Schema.Type._
+
+/* 
+  Example usage in pyspark:  
+
+    avroRdd = sc.newAPIHadoopFile("/tmp/data.avro", 
+      "org.apache.avro.mapreduce.AvroKeyInputFormat", 
+      "org.apache.avro.mapred.AvroKey", 
+      "org.apache.hadoop.io.NullWritable",
+      keyConverter="org.apache.spark.examples.pythonconverters.AvroGenericConverter")
+*/
+class AvroGenericConverter extends Converter[AvroKey[GenericRecord], java.util.Map[String, Any]] {
+  override def convert(obj: AvroKey[GenericRecord]): java.util.Map[String, Any] = {
+
+    def unpackRecord(record: GenericRecord): java.util.Map[String,Any] = {
+      mapAsJavaMap(record.getSchema.getFields.map( f => (f.name, unpack(record.get(f.name), f.schema) ) ).toMap)
+    }
+    
+    def unpackArray(value: Any, schema: Schema): java.util.List[Any] = {
+      bufferAsJavaList(value.asInstanceOf[java.util.List[Any]].map( v => unpack(v, schema)))
+    }
+
+    def unpackUnion(value: Any): Any = value match {   
+      case v:java.lang.Double => value.asInstanceOf[java.lang.Double]
+      case v:java.lang.Float => value.asInstanceOf[java.lang.Float]  
+      case v:java.lang.Integer => value.asInstanceOf[java.lang.Integer] 
+      case v:java.lang.Long => value.asInstanceOf[java.lang.Long] 
+      case v:java.lang.String => value.asInstanceOf[java.lang.String] 
+      case _ => ""
+    }
+
+    def unpack(value: Any, schema: Schema): Any = schema.getType match {
+      case ARRAY => unpackArray(value, schema.getElementType)       
+      // case BOOLEAN            
+      // case BYTES            
+      case DOUBLE => value.asInstanceOf[java.lang.Double]
+      case ENUM => value.toString
+      // case FIXED           
+      case FLOAT => value.asInstanceOf[java.lang.Float]
+      case INT => value.asInstanceOf[java.lang.Integer]
+      case LONG => value.asInstanceOf[java.lang.Long]
+      // case MAP
+      case RECORD => unpackRecord(value.asInstanceOf[GenericRecord])       
+      case STRING => value.asInstanceOf[java.lang.String]     
+      case UNION => unpackUnion(value)
+      case _ => value.toString
+    }  
+
+    unpackRecord(obj.datum())
+  }
+}
+