@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@
 # import time side effect: array operations requires typing support of sequence
 # defined in collections: e.g. array.shape[i]
 from numba.core.typing import collections
-from numba.core.errors import TypingError
+from numba.core.errors import RequireLiteralValue, TypingError
 
 Indexing = namedtuple("Indexing", ("index", "result", "advanced"))
 
@@ -448,6 +448,9 @@ def resolve_astype(self, ary, args, kws):
         from .npydecl import parse_dtype
         assert not kws
         dtype, = args
+        if isinstance(dtype, types.UnicodeType):
+            raise RequireLiteralValue(("array.astype if dtype is a string it "
+                                       "must be constant"))
         dtype = parse_dtype(dtype)
         if dtype is None:
             return
 
@@ -4303,6 +4303,7 @@ def array_ascontiguousarray(context, builder, sig, args):
 
 
 @lower_builtin("array.astype", types.Array, types.DTypeSpec)
+@lower_builtin("array.astype", types.Array, types.StringLiteral)
 def array_astype(context, builder, sig, args):
     arytype = sig.args[0]
     ary = make_array(arytype)(context, builder, value=args[0])
 
@@ -475,6 +475,7 @@ def check(arr, dtype):
         check(arr, np.int32)
         check(arr, np.float32)
         check(arr, np.complex128)
+        check(arr, "float32")
 
         # F-contiguous
         arr = np.arange(24, dtype=np.int8).reshape((3, 8)).T
@@ -495,6 +496,15 @@ def check(arr, dtype):
             check(arr, dt)
         self.assertIn('cannot convert from int32 to Record',
                       str(raises.exception))
+        # Check non-Literal string raises
+        unicode_val = "float32"
+        with self.assertTypingError() as raises:
+            @jit(nopython=True)
+            def foo(dtype):
+                np.array([1]).astype(dtype)
+            foo(unicode_val)
+        self.assertIn('array.astype if dtype is a string it must be constant',
+                      str(raises.exception))
 
     def check_np_frombuffer(self, pyfunc):
         def run(buf):