Tess Lemmon writing in the "New Internationalist" magazine called "Burger's Daughter" "arguably best novel", and complimented her on her characterisation, attention to detail, and ability to blend "the personal and the political". Lemmon noted that the book's "subtle, lyrical writing" brings the reader into the characters' minds, which "is an enlivening but uncomfortable place to be". In a review of Gordimer's 1980 story collection, "A Soldier's Embrace" in "The New York Times Book Review", American novelist and critic A. G. Mojtabai stated that despite the troubled times Gordimer lived through at the time she wrote "Burger's Daughter", she remained "subdued" and "sober", and even though she "scarcely raise[d her voice", it still "reverberate over a full range of emotion".