From Escaping an Arranged Marriage to Stand-Up Comedy: Zarna Garg Tells All in New Memoir (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Zarna Garg is releasing a memoir, ‘This American Woman’.

Zarna Gargfled India at age 14 to avoid an arranged marriage. Later, she moved to the Big Apple and settled into life as a stay-at-home mom for years before realizing that she — and her “big fat mouth” — wanted more.

Now, the award-winning comedian — who has opened forTina FeyandAmy Poehlerand has a new stand-up special premiering on Hulu in 2025 — is telling her life story in a new memoir that, if it’s anything like its author, promises to leave readers breathless with laughter and utterly inspired, and PEOPLE can exclusively debut its cover.

This American Woman, whose cover sees Garg, 49, sitting in the arms of Lady Liberty and carrying her torch, will hit bookshelves in April 2025 — and hopes to show readers that it is “never, ever too late to go after your dream,” Garg tells PEOPLE in an exclusive statement.

The cover of comedian Zarna Garg’s memoir ‘This American Woman’.

Eventually, after fleeing her home country and landing in the Midwest, the comedian “got to move to New York City, marry who I wanted and raise kids I actually liked,” she explains.

“But then I started having American problems of my own: I was a stay-at-home mom for 17 years and I lost sight of who I was and what I wanted,” she tells PEOPLE. “By the time I came out the other side, I thought it was too late for me to have my own dreams. Guess what? It’s never too late.”

Garg says she “tripped and fell on my face a few times,” but “lightning struck” when her kids dared her to give stand-up comedy a try — and her life fell into place.

“Everything in my life finally clicked — my past, my pain and above all, my weirdness,” she tells PEOPLE, adding that she wants anyone who readsThis American Womanto know that “it’s never, ever too late to go after your dream, no matter how messy, crazy or impossible it seems.”

Adds Garg: “If you win the day before you die, you still won!”

Comedian Zarna Garg performing in November 2024.Jamie McCarthy/Getty

Jamie McCarthy/Getty

To get this message across, the comedian “turns her astonishing life story into a hilarious memoir — from narrowly escaping an arranged marriage in India to carving her own path in America and launching a dazzling second act in midlife,” according to the book’s official synopsis.

“On Zarna’s very American quest to find herself and her calling, she threw herself wholeheartedly into roles like dog-bite lawyer, crazy perfectionist stay-at-home mom, Indian matchmaker, prize-winning screenwriter and more,” the description continues.

“It wasn’t until a dare led her to a stand-up comedy open mic that Zarna finally found her spiritual home: getting paid cold, hard cash for her big, fat mouth. And as Zarna discovered, after surviving the brutal streets of Mumbai, the cutthroat world of stand-up comedy is nothing.”

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This American Womancomes out April 29, 2025 and is available for preorder now, wherever books are sold.

source: people.com