Shinichi is a withdrawn boy who is often the target of ridicule at school, but one day, overcoming his shyness, he invites a classmate—the naive narrator of this story—to play at his house in the afternoon to celebrate the Inari festival. And so, the surprised guest discovers that the timid and spoiled boy also has a perverse side. During their secret games at the mansion, Shinichi becomes a little tyrant to his sister, to the son of some servants, and to our protagonist—a stand-in for the author himself—who finds it increasingly pleasurable to succumb to the fascinating attraction of submitting to the malicious tyranny of his new friends.

The Boy and Other Tales of Cruel Childhood takes us back to the beginnings of a young Tanizaki's literary career, years marked by financial hardship and emotional blows. In these stories, the children, far from the usual idealization of childhood, star in stories about desire, pain, illness or loss that also contain a great autobiographical charge.