The Dutch-language author Hugo Claus is one of the most celebrated and most translated Flemish authors of the twentieth century. Especially the French translations of his work fulfil an important position in the (inter)national dissemination of his work. Starting in the 1950s, his oeuvre enters the field of World Literature through the French translations and Parisian publications of his work, because French was still very much a lingua franca in the 1950s and Paris the centre of the World Republic of Letters. Even if Paris fulfils a gateway function, Claus’s intra-Belgian bilingual francophone-Dutch contacts and networks prove to have been crucial in the coming about of the French translations of his oeuvre and reveal interesting interlingual and intercultural dynamics within the bilingual (multilingual) cultural area of Belgium. In this article, the author will explore the position and dissemination of Claus’s (early) works within a Belgian and international context, against the background of the mutual interactions between national and international networks and taking into account mechanisms of intercultural exchange, circulation and promotion within the (inter)national literary field.