A concession to retain eastern story-teller (5)
I believe the answer is:
aesop
'story-teller' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'a concession to retain eastern' is the wordplay.
'concession' becomes 'sop' (sop is a kind of concession).
'to retain' indicates putting letters inside.
'eastern' becomes 'e'.
'a'+'sop'='asop'
'asop' placed around 'e' is 'AESOP'.
(Other definitions for aesop that I've seen before include "Classic fable writer" , "Greek fable writer" , "A classical fable teller" , "story teller" , "very old writer" .)