The novel was generally well-received by critics. A reviewer for "The New York Times" said that "Burger's Daughter" is Gordimer's "most political and most moving novel", and a review in "The New York Review of Books" described the style of writing as "elegant", "fastidious" and belonging to a "cultivated upper class". A critic in "The Hudson Review" had mixed feelings about the book, saying that it "gives scarcely any pleasure in the reading but which one is pleased to have read nonetheless". "Burger's Daughter" won the Central News Agency Literary Award in 1980.