diff --git a/mypyc/codegen/cstring.py b/mypyc/codegen/cstring.py
index 853787f8161d4..0220d5b0c24a4 100644
--- a/mypyc/codegen/cstring.py
+++ b/mypyc/codegen/cstring.py
@@ -31,7 +31,8 @@
 
 # These assignments must come last because we prioritize simple escape
 # sequences over any other representation.
-for c in ("'", '"', "\\", "a", "b", "f", "n", "r", "t", "v"):
+for c in ("'", '"', "\\", "a", "b", "f", "n", "r", "t", "v", "0"):
+
     escaped = f"\\{c}"
     decoded = escaped.encode("ascii").decode("unicode_escape")
     CHAR_MAP[ord(decoded)] = escaped