When you’re a U.S. newspaper publisher looking for new audiences, why not look to foreign shores? Like perhaps, the mouth of the Danube . Romania, after all, is the birthplace of writers from poet Paul Celan and Dada man Tristan Tzara to playwright Eugene Ionesco.

In that spirit, The New York Times said on Tuesday that it agreed to distribute its Book Review in Romanian .

From the press release:

While The New York Times currently publishes the International Weekly, an international edition of news and features, in 28 newspapers in 25 countries, the Romanian edition of the Book Review is content from The Times made available through a licensing arrangement.

“The New York Times Book Review is the publication most often mentioned on the covers of American books translated and published in Romania,” said Sergiu Crupenschi, managing director of Editura Univers. “The translation of the Book Review will bring to Romania the expertise of critics and writers who are reviewing the most important books published in United States and around the world.”

New York Times spokeswoman Kristin Mason confirmed that the review is not published in the local language of any other country yet. We’re waiting for a call back on why the paper chose Romanian, not among the world’s most-spoken tongues.

Update: Here’s why, according to an e-mail from spokeswoman Diane McNulty: “We are looking to license The New York Times Book Review in other parts of the world and this is the first deal that was completed.” 

(Photo: Mario Vargas Llosa knows as well as the next guy that Romania is a literary place. Here he is in Bucharest in 2005. Photo Credit: Reuters)