He was born in an influential Slovene intellectual family in Trieste; his father, Zorko Jelinčič, was among the co-founders of the militant anti-fascist organization TIGR, and a close personal friend of prominent authors such as Vladimir Bartol and Klement Jug.
In his college years, he visited most of the world, traveling as backpacker and also lived for a year in a kibbutz in Israel.