peer reviewed ; The poet and translator Aldo Capasso had a key role as passeur of French-speaking Belgian literature in post-World War II Italy. The writers that he translated and promoted in his journal «Realismo Lirico» were close to neoclassical aesthetics and intimate realism (Bernier, Hennart, Vandercammen, Burniaux and especially Ayguesparse). They also collaborated with the Belgian journal «Marginales». His most ambitious project was the launch of Belgian literature by the Pacini Fazzi publishing house, which in 1966 published four volumes of Belgian novels and short stories (Ayguesparse, Thiry, Pierson-Pié-rard, Burniaux). On the one hand, Capasso recognised Belgian literature as having its own specificity, distinguishing it from French literature; on the other hand, he tried to integrate it into the Lyrical Realism movement he had founded. By bringing together literary and editorial history and translation dynamics, an attempt is made to understand how Belgian literature was introduced in Italy in the heated cultural debate of those years.